Calmatters, a prominent website about California government and politics, has this op-ed about the California top-two system. The authors support top-two. At the very first sentence, they make a factual error. They say that California had a closed primary before the voters passed top-two in June 2010. Actually the Democratic and Republican Parties let California independent voters vote in their congressional and state office primaries in all years 2002 through 2010. The Secretary of State’s website verifies this.

Another flaw with the op-ed is that it implies that top-two is the only system that permits independents to vote in partisan primaries. But many states without top-two let independents vote in partisan primaries. Either states can hold a classic open primary, in which any voter is free to choose any party’s primary. Or, they can provide by law that independents can choose any primary ballot. Or, they can do as Louisiana has long done, and still does for state office: abolish the primary entirely, and only have a general election, with a run-off if no one gets 50%.