Today we come to praise the Denver Election Commission, not to join in the latest attacks on it.

Heaven knows we've leveled our share of criticism at the commission - especially after last fall's election meltdown. But blasting an agency on the defensive can become a mindless habit, even when it does something right.

Four nonprofit groups, including Common Cause, have denounced the commission's decision to remove 117,000 names from active voter status because the voters missed last fall's election and January's special election.

"Scrubbing the voter list based on a faulty election has the potential of disenfranchising thousands of voters who may wish to participate in upcoming elections, including the presidential election in 2008," the groups said Thursday.

Talk about hysteria.

First, no one is "scrubbing" the voter list - although the list may well need a scrubbing. Voters who miss three consecutive general elections are supposed to have their names removed from registration files unless they contact election officials.

But that's not what the commission is up to. It's moving voters from active to inactive status if they failed to vote in November or January and failed to respond to a mailing in February. The commission is legally supposed to do this in order to maintain the integrity of its voter list.

Remember, May's city election is being conducted by mail. And while previous mail elections seem to have been fairly clean, there's no guarantee that will always be the case. Why tempt fate by mailing tens of thousands of ballots to addresses of voters who may not live there any more, or who at least have demonstrated no interest in the process of late?

Inactive voters can still vote in May's election, by the way, if they contact the commission to reactivate their status. Meanwhile, the commission is perfectly within its rights not to send them a ballot. Indeed, it's the proper call.