Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and California Congressman Ro Khanna have this op-ed, defending the California top-two system. It has appeared in the Washington Post, the Sacramento Bee, and the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Like some other defenders of the top-two system, Schwarzenegger and Khanna try to deceive readers into believing that California must choose between top-two, and a closed primary system. They do not mention that there are four other systems that do not restrict voter choice in November (as top-two does), and which still allow independent voters to vote in primaries.

Those systems are: (1) an open primary, used by 19 states, in which there is no such thing as registration into a party, and any voter can choose any party’s primary ballot; (2) a semi-closed primary, in which independent voters can choose any party’s primary ballot but party members are restricted to their own party’s primary ballot; (3) a blanket primary, in which all partisan candidates run on the same primary ballot and all voters used that ballot, but the top vote-getter from each party (plus any petitioning independents) appears on the November ballot; (4) the Louisiana system, in which there are no primaries.

Schwarzenegger and Khanna make it especially difficult for readers to understand that alternatives exist, because they use “open primary” to refer to the top-two system. Thus when anyone tries to explain the existence of a true open primary, confusion results.