In a letter printed on the page opposite, a member of Mayor Bloomberg’s Charter Revision Commission, Katheryn Patterson, accuses The New York Sun of “equanimity”in the face of “an election system that denies an opportunity to vote in either a primary election or the general election, or both, in nine council districts with greater than 1.4 million New Yorkers.” Ms. Patterson is referring to the fact — which her commission publicized aggressively last week — that five City Council incumbents who defeated primary election challengers will face no opposition in the general election in November and that four incumbents who faced no primary challenger also will run in the general election unopposed. Pardon us for keeping our composure in the face of such an affront to democracy.

However, as was pointed out in the editorial to which Ms. Patterson is responding, the flip side of this supposedly alarming factoid is that 40 out of 49 incumbents are facing a challenge this November. Granted, not all of these are serious challenges in the view of Ms. Patterson, but they are serious to the challengers and to thousands of other New Yorkers. And if the most important of these challenges is not being taken seriously by the Democrats — we speak of Jennifer Arangio’s run against the speaker of the City Council, Gifford “I Promise Not to Lower Your Taxes” Miller — it may be because the ostensible Republican who is mayor has been encouraging people to vote for the Democrat.

This may be because Ms. Arangio is basing her challenge on the Urban Republican Platform of cutting taxes. Nor, in any event, has Hizzoner been out supporting the challenger in the 49th councilmanic district, though she’s another fine Republican, Lisa Giovinazzo, who will try to unseat Democrat Michael McMahon.

More fundamentally, however, one has to question the idea that anyone is being denied the opportunity to vote. In the nine districts where no general election challenger has risen to battle the established Democrat, we do not see the logic of blaming the situation on our system of elections. If the Republicans in a district are unable or unwilling to put up a candidate, who exactly has been disenfranchised? Those who have chosen not to engage in the political process?

And in those districts where there was not even a Democratic challenger to a Democratic incumbent, is this not simply a sign that the Democrats are happy with the choice they made the last time around? As the executive director of the city’s Campaign Finance Board told the Sun recently, “It’s just kind of a given that you have to make a stronger case if you’re trying to knock someone out and replace them.”

In a city where registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans five to one, there aren’t going to be all that many competitive general election races. The solution is not to eliminate the right of the Republican Party to conduct its internal affairs, meaning its selection of its candidate, by holding a primary. By eliminating party primaries, the Charter Commission is in effect eliminating parties. Then, all voters in all districts would usually have a choice between the top two Democrats in November, which commission members admit will often be the case. The solution, instead, is for opponents of the conventional, liberal wisdom in this city to build a viable opposition party. Mr. Bloomberg could be instrumental in this if he so chooses, but as a Democrat in Republican clothing he has no interest in real political competition — just conveniently Democrat-friendly non-partisanship.