The editorial, “GOP lays groundwork for future electoral mischief,” (Sept. 28) succinctly describes, but in my opinion, understates the degree of chaos that will follow when, as I think everyone now expects, claim of election fraud becomes the go-to strategy for affecting the final outcome of every significant state or federal election. One might hope that it’s overuse would deflate its strategic effectiveness, but I am not so sure. The failure of the Arizona challenge, and the faux-contractor’s begrudging acknowledgment of the correctness of original election result, has quietly granted that company a credit it does not merit. Will its next efforts now be more uncritically accepted? Will state legislatures now demand third-party examinations of electoral results as a matter of course and in place of state agency recounts?

If there is a single most important brick in the foundation of a democracy, it is the act of each citizen in its population to individually express his or her opinion, in the form of a vote, as to who its leaders should be — not self-selected leaders telling the populace who they must answer to. Take that brick away, and the house will fall.

Jay Louden

Noank