Within days of the Montana Republican Party's announcement that it was challenging the legitimacy of some 6,000 registered voters, we received upwards of a dozen angry letters to the editor. Thank goodness they now are moot and we don't need to run them.

Jacob Eaton, state GOP executive director, called off the challenges on Tuesday, putting a really bad idea out of its misery.

The Republican challenges were based on voters who had notified the Post Office they moved after they had last registered to vote. As was quickly pointed out, people who move within the county they live in don't need to re-register. Nor do students who go off to college but still are qualified to vote. Nor do soldiers who have their mail forwarded to a different address because they've gone off to war in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Eaton appeared to respond to that last example, saying that "as a disabled combat veteran who had fought al-Qaida to defend this country and who has voted absentee en route to a war zone," he regrets that challenges have been construed by some as an attempt to suppress voter turnout.

He insisted that the party's actions were made in good faith, an assertion that would have carried more weight if the challenges had not all been aimed at Democratic-leaning counties, including Lewis and Clark.

Democrats filed a federal lawsuit against the challenges Monday, contending they violate election laws and were transparent attempts to lower voter turnout where Democrats were strongest. Predictably, Democrats called the GOP challenges an act of desperation

We don't know about desperate. But harebrained? You bet.