New Orleans is in the news again.

But the story might not be found on the front page. It is not as exciting as a deadly hurricane crashing into the historical city, but it is arguably as important.

This Saturday, about 100,000 of the city’s 500,000 citizens took part in the first round of municipal elections.

The first round? What is this? A boxing match?

No, unlike the other 49 states in the union, Louisiana has a unique “open primary” election system, much like a parliamentary election.

Instead of holding primary elections where Democrats and Republicans choose their candidates for the elections, Louisiana throws all candidates into the same election, regardless of party affiliation. The mayoral race, for instance, had 22 candidates, with incumbent mayor Ray Nagin gaining 39 percent of the vote.

Though he received more votes than any other candidate, he now will face a run-off election against the second highest placing candidate, Mitch Landrieu, lieutenant governor of Louisiana. Had one of them received more than 50 percent of the vote, that candidate would have automatically won.

The advantage of this style of an election system is that all voters are allowed to choose their first choice for mayor, governor, representative etc. Instead of choosing between one Democrat and one Republican, Louisianans have the opportunity to choose between a wide variety of Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Communists, Independents, etc.

Statistically, there is a much greater chance of one of these 22 candidates having a similar political ideology to one’s own than two candidates could possibly provide.

This helps Louisianans not to be bound to party lines. One could choose a moderate or reactionary Republican, a moderate or radical Democrat.

Personally, I feel this is real democracy as opposed to our “limited democracy” of two choices.

Sure, we also vote in primary elections, but we vote in the primaries under party lines. In the 2004 Democratic primaries, I voted for the moderate Gen. Wesley Clark, who was backed by former president Bill Clinton among, others (even though he had already dropped from the race by the time it got to Illinois). Many of Clark’s views were similar to those of the more conservative Republicans, however, Republicans never had the luxury of choosing Clark to run.

Had our country’s political process been like Louisiana’s, I feel a more moderate candidate like Gen. Clark, or in the case of Republicans, John McCain or Rudy Giuliani, would have been more possible.

With Louisiana’s system we would not be torn between a reactionary and a radical every election. Moderates would be able to choose candidates with political views similar to their own.

The sad truth is that Louisiana has a dying system. Legislators are considering changing the system in line with the other 49 states, because the federal government actually penalizes Louisiana senators and representatives for the system. Louisiana Congressmen are always last to get seniority in the capital, because technically, they are voted for after the actual November elections.

A subtle move by the federal government to oppress all things “un-American” a.k.a different.

So much for democracy after all.