No sooner than the primary closed Tuesday than Mayor Bloomberg began suggesting that the modest turnout supports his scheme for “non-partisan” elections. “A few thousand people have determined the future legislative course of this city,” the mayor said Wednesday. “They sat there, they picked who they wanted, but the rest of us, the vast bulk of the 8 million people, will have absolutely no say in who the legislators are who will write legislation for the next couple of years in this city.”

The statement is so erroneous that it can only be disingenuous. But, to take the mayor on his own terms, the claim that “the vast bulk of the 8 million people, will have absolutely no say,” is absurd. Only about half of New Yorkers are even registered to vote. Out of those roughly 4 million registered voters, a third shouldn’t be voting in primaries to start with, because they’re not registered with the parties who are holding the primaries. If they’re not in a party, why should they be voting in the primary.

Nor need it be true that the primary decision is the end of the matter. In Speaker Gifford Miller’s District 5,the winner of the Republican primary, Jennifer Arangio — who won a decisive victory with about 600 votes to her name — will have a clear shot at the highest-ranked Democrat in town come November. The “rest of us,” as hizonner puts it so haughtily, will have every chance in the world to get our say in the general election.

The fact that more than half of the council members in this year’s election are not going to face a challenger says nothing so much as that one of the most extravagant public campaign funding systems in the country, in which taxpayers are forced to match private campaign donations by four-to-one, does little for turnout. Apparently, the mayor wants to see if he can improve upon this failure. But one has to ask, why is it the job of the state to interfere in how the political parties choose their nominees? For that is what a primary is, a political party making its own decision as to who should represent it in the general election.

The “reforms” the mayor wants would actually restrict parties from the ballot, disempowering those who have chosen to aggregate their money and votes through the party system. What is so desirable about that? Politics won’t heat up in this town until the Republicans find a way to rub two sticks together and start a fire. Denying them a primary to chose their candidate won’t help that effort.