Here is a picture of the California sample ballot from June 1998, for the office of Governor. At that time, California used a blanket primary. All candidates from all parties appeared on that primary ballot. Then, the top vote-getter from each party advanced to the general election, along with any independent candidates. As one can see, there were 17 candidates for Governor. Each one had a party label, and also an occupation, printed on the ballot in three languages.
If the California “top-two open primary” becomes law, California primary ballots in the future will look like this, except that instead of each candidate’s party label, each candidate would instead have next to his or her name this sentence: “My party preference is the Republican Party” (or whatever qualified party the candidate is registered into). This statement would be printed in three languages in counties that contain most of California’s population. All this verbiage, combined with the long list of candidates for each office, makes for a cumbersome primary ballot.
Because both the blanket primary, and the top-two primary, print all candidates from all parties on the same primary ballot, those systems create very lengthy primary ballots. In June 1998, besides 17 candidates for Governor on that unitary primary ballot, there were 13 for Lieutenant Governor, 9 for Secretary of State, 7 for Controller, 9 for Treasurer, 10 for Attorney General, 8 for Insurance Commissioner, 11 for Board of Equalization (in each of two districts), 13 for U.S. Senator, and as many as 10 for U.S. House and Assembly. Then there were separate primary ballots for party office, distributed to each voter who was a member of a qualified party. The separate ballots for party office eliminate any possibility that the “top-two open primary” would save printing costs for election administrators.
Under a “top-two open primary”, the general election is undercrowded. There would only be two candidates for each congressional and state office, for a very short ballot with few choices. “Top-two open primary” creates a primary ballot that tries to do too many functions all at once, and then a stultifyingly short November ballot. By contrast, the normal system, in which each party has its own primary ballot, provides more balance. Both the primary ballot and the November ballot typically have 4, 5 or 6 choices, in the existing California system.