Salvador:

This is not quite an answer to your question of which states have banned political parties, but it is of interest and political significance to that issue nonetheless:

Having roots in Minnesota and the DFL party, single-party controlled states during the Populist and Progressive eras banned "fusion." Fusion is a practice in which a minority party would endorse the candidates of another more competitive party. Many of the minority parties back in the those eras employed fusion to try to be of significance in states where a single party (at that time, usually the Republican party) controlled state government. The farmer's party and labor party, for example, would all endorse the Democratic candidates in an effort to unseat their Republican counterparts.

In 1907, 18 states banned the practice of fusion.

When the Republican-controlled Minnesota legislature banned fusion, one Republican lawmaker clearly explained the rationale: "We don't propose to allow the Democrats to make allies of the Populists, Prohibitionists, or any other party, and get up combination tickets against us. We can whip them single-handed, but don't intend to fight all creation." In Minnesota, the minority parties formed a single party with the Democrats -- the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party (DFL) -- to get around the anti-fusion ban.

Today, fusion has been banned in all but eight states.

Craig Holman, Ph.D.
Government Affairs Lobbyist
Public Citizen
215 Pennsylvania Avenue NE
Washington, D.C. 20003
TEL: (202) 454-5182
CEL: (202) 905-7413
FAX: (202) 547-7392
Holman@aol.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Salvador Peralta <oregon.properties@yahoo.com>
To: election-law <election-law@mailman.lls.edu>
Sent: Sat, Apr 9, 2011 5:51 pm
Subject: [EL] Banning political parties