ARGUING AGAINST asking Tiverton voters whether they’d like to return to partisan elections after one cycle of nonpartisanism, Charter Review Commission member Frank “Richard” Joslin made two points that have the ring of Rhode Islandry: First, that residents who actually vote (or get involved) know who belongs to what party, and second, that Joslin’s fellow members of the Tiverton Democratic Committee are so ideologically diverse as to make party labels of negligible value. At the previous meeting, Commissioner Frank Marshall had asserted that everybody elected to local office is there simply to work hard and do right by the town.

Thus do Rhode Islanders like to believe about themselves. Everybody who cares knows, so inside information is by definition public, and everybody votes for the person, not the party, because the individuals are so independent and well intentioned.

That second belief is broadly thought to have the tacit prerequisite that the party starts with “D.” During break-time conversation at one commission meeting, a Republican in the audience insisted that being known as such has hurt candidates in the past. One man pointed out that nonpartisanism protects local candidates from straight-ticket voting when things go sour for the national and state GOPs. Indeed, active Republicans across the state point to Narragansett and Woonsocket — whose councils are not entirely GOP-free — as evidence that nonpartisan elections let elephants sneak into office.

Statewide comparisons, however, suggest that, while Rhode Island voters are reflexive Democrats, they will seek to add balance when given the chance. In municipalities that elect their council members by district or ward, fewer than one of every 20 council members is a Republican; each ward simply elects its Democrat. By contrast, councils that are elected in a “vote for 5” fashion (whatever the number), and for which candidates’ parties are noted on the ballot, average one Republican for every three Democrats.

And that’s after the party-line drubbing that the Rhode Island GOP received in 2006 and ’07. Following the 2004-05 elections, almost half of all non-districted, party-identified council members were Republican, and more than half were non-Democrats.

It is true that nonpartisan Republicans were insulated from voters’ temper tantrum (to invert Peter Jennings’s description of Americans’ red splash of 1994), with the change in the party ratio largely attributable to Tiverton’s entry into the category. However, that ratio hovers around one Republican to six Democrats. In short, according to this measure, Republicans are twice as successful in Rhode Island when identified, even when they are thought to be unpopular as a group.

That revelation oughtn’t seem counter-intuitive, but rational. “Doing right by the town” doesn’t involve clear and objectively verifiable decisions, and a candidate’s party affiliation will tell citizens something about what his or her approach to making them will be. In the absence of major issues, and with the understanding that local officers are more volunteers than career politicians, voters need additional information by which to make their decisions.

Simple name recognition is key in local elections, and whether their parties are whited out or not, the Democrats have a much more substantial infrastructure in the state, and relying on it isn’t forbidden, even when truth in balloting is. Separated from general expectations about party platforms, to the extent that the candidates are able to get their names and messages out, it is through the usual political methods and organs, which are steeped in partisan politics.

It’s fine that Joslin proclaims the ideological diversity of his town Democrat club. Wonderful, even. But as Rhode Islanders who prefer split councils understand, something must make it worthwhile for his peers to band together as partisans — some goal, some bond, probably beyond the dislike of President Bush and Governor Carcieri. The cumulative effect of all this is to facilitate Rhode Island’s dysfunctional government and collapsing society.

Town government is the farm team for the state, and while everybody is content to believe that the friendly Democrat whom each of the vast majority of state districts puts into office will work hard to do right by the state, at the end of the governing process, the General Assembly that they rule has brought us to a precipice of annual structural deficits in the hundreds of millions and an unfunded pension liability in the billions. Worse, the gang continues to work against reform.

Although it has not proven to be the case that Rhode Island Republicans do well to campaign from under a nonpartisan blanket, it may soon prove to Democrats’ advantage to disguise that they are united in disdain for conservative reformers such as Governor Carcieri. Like much in Rhode Island politics, the players appear to have their preferences backwards.

Justin Katz, an occasional contributor, is administrator of anchorrising.com, a public-policy discussion site.