Recently, I saw the headline “Democratic lawmaker from Blue Hill charged with election interference” (Sept. 5). Before I opened the article, my mind conjured all of the instances of election interference we’ve seen across the country in recent years.

• Did the lawmaker from Blue Hill work with a technology company that stole data from millions of Facebook users to feed them customized political ads?
• Did they meet with agents of foreign countries to dig up dirt on their opponents?
• Did they call the Secretary of State’s office and urge them to find another 11,780 votes (or maybe just 11 votes) to overturn a presidential election?
• Did they find a tech plutocrat to allegedly pay people to vote for their preferred candidate by entering them into a contest to win $1 million for each vote?
• Did they issue violent threats to election officials in crucial districts, causing them to close or voters in those areas to fear for their safety?
• Did the representative cause other states to engage in mid-decade gerrymandering efforts to cement one-party rule for a generation, should our constitutional democracy survive?
• Did they instigate a riot and storm the Capitol in response to the results of a free and fair election?
  

Piqued, I opened the article.

I was astonished to read that, with scant evidence, the representative in question had been charged with simply talking to voters about an election within 250 feet of a polling location; a lapse of judgement, for sure (if true), but a far cry from the instances of “election interference” that flashed in my mind’s eye.

Did the editors mean to conjure this false equivalence?

Rep. Grayson Lookner
Portland