This is a little nuts.

It’s just been explained to me that whichever candidate wins the second special election for Yvette Clarke’s vacated seat — made necessary by a residency issue involving the winner of the first election — will only serve for about six months. At that time, there will be a third election to determine who gets to serve the rest of Clarke’s original four-year term.

The city charter dictates that the special election is only meant to fill the vacancy until the end of the year, a spokeswoman for the city’s Board of Election confirmed. Then, the winner of that special election has to run in a primary and a partisan general election to serve the remainder of the unfilled term, which, in this case, ends December 31st, 2009.

Which should make this a great year, at least, for consultants.

– Azi Paybarah