For example, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, whom as the article notes is the real author of the anti-immigrant law in Arizona, cited 221 cases of voter "fraud" since 1997. Given that the starting date was an odd-numbered year, from 1997 through 2010, the elections before the law was passed, that comes out to an average of less than 16 supposed fraudulent votes per year, or as the editorial notes, "an infinitesimal percentage."

But the Times examined the cases in question and found

almost all were honest mistakes: a parent trying to vote for a student away at college, or signatures on mail-in ballots that didn’t precisely match those on file.

When others have tried to respond to the requirements of the law Republicans objected: -in Wisconsin a government issued id must have an expiration date and signatures. Current university ids did not, so

the elections board proposed that colleges add stickers to the cards with expiration dates and signatures. Republican lawmakers protested that the stickers would lead to — yes, voter fraud.

There is no doubt the Republican intent is to suppress votes that would most likely be Democratic. In Wisconsin, there is little doubt university students would oppose Republicans at least in the forthcoming recall election for the Governor - after all, it was graduate students who took the lead in occupying the Capitol building in Madison.

The editorial does not end with a forceful demand or any charge that what is being done either violates rights or is illegal. It does note the attempt to restrict early voting and to limit absentee ballots, both things used to great effect by the Obama campaign in 2008. It had already noted that

More than 21 million citizens — 11 percent of the population — do not have government ID cards. Many of them are poor, or elderly, or black and Hispanic and could have a hard time navigating the bureaucracy to get a card.

Let's be clear. Requiring someone who is voting for the first time, especially after registering motor voter, to have a government issued picture id is constitutional.

It should also be clear that requiring someone to pay for a government issued id for the sole purpose of being able to vote when one does not drive should be found an unconstitutional violation of the 24th Amendment's banning of poll and other taxes, at least for federal elections - in theory a state could make someone pay for a government id to vote in state and local elections, were it willing to maintain a parallel registration system and have separate voting machines.

I would argue such a requirement for someone voting from a place where they had previously voted could be challenged in the Courts. After all, in allowing the person to vote previously the election board in the community has already accepted that person's qualifications as to citizenship, age, and residency,and any burden of proving otherwise should be upon the state: to require additional identification implies that the person might have previously broken the law.

I would be very happy to make myself a test case. But I was just issued a new voter registration card by Arlington County, and I was NOT required to come in to prove my identify nor to demonstrate that I have a government issued picture id. Of course, in Virginia Democrats still - at least through this November - control the State Senate. Thus I do not expect to be challenged when I vote in November, and cannot expect to be able to serve as a test case.

These laws need to be challenged as much as possible right now.

There is probably no obvious legal basis to challenge elimination of early voting or restricting of absentee voting, unless one can show some violation of equal protection under the 14th Amendment, except in states and counties subject to pre-clearance under the Voting Rights Act.

Despite that, I think the issue can be used to create a backlash against Republicans among many independents, and to motivate people who have the requisite id to turn out and vote. After all, the history of this country at least constitutionally has been to expand the franchise - who can vote. We have Amendments 15, 19, 24 and 26 for starters. We also have legislation, including the aforementioned Voting Rights Act of 1965.

We should be able to make the case that Republicans don't want people to vote who might vote Democratic because they know their policies do not appeal to most Americans.

Democrats in the Senate should introduce national standards on voting for Federal elections and let the Republicans be seen to filibuster.

Newspaper editorials are a start, especially from a paper with the stature of the New York Times.

Each year I teach my students about voter participation in this country as compared to other democracies. Our percentage of either voter aged or voter eligible population that votes is embarrassingly low compared to other nations. We make registration hard, we have limited voting hours in some states, we hold our elections on a work/school day. Other nations vote on weekends, or over several days, or make voting a national holiday. They structure their voting process to encourage people to participate. We should be embarrassed - no, ASHAMED - that we take a contrary approach.

Republicans argue about voting fraud.

It is a myth - unless you want to get into possible manipulation of voting machines by companies with Republican leanings, or attempts by Republican registrars and Secretaries of State (Katherine Harris, anyone) to suppress on inaccurate grounds the right to vote of people who would vote Democratic.

In 2000 the Presidency was lost to a man who did this nation great damage, including two appointments to the Supreme Court that still haunt us. He was able to win in part because of an erroneous felon's list used to exclude people. He was also able to win in part because of stupidity of Florida Democrats, who agreed to the butterfly ballot in Palm Beach that lead to the infamous Jews for Buchanan votes among confused elderly residents in the heavily Jewish condos, and the loss of over 10,000 votes when people in another county were told to vote on every page to ensure votes down ballot, only to have those ballots disqualified because the presidential candidates were spread across two pages. The Palm Beach ballot was effectively in violation of Florida law because it did not present the presidential candidates in the requisite order, but the Palm Beach Dems had signed off on it. What should have flowed from that mess was a more consistent approach to elections. The changes made perhaps enabled some elections to be stolen, but that was not enough for Republicans, who now want to prevent possible Democratic voters from even being eligible to vote.

Our elections are becoming fraudulent, but not because poor or black or young people are voting illegally. They are becoming fraudulent because the process is being distorted by big money, because portions of the populace are being systematically excluded from participation, because a Secretary of State like Ken Blackwell in Ohio in 2004 can ensure that precincts in college towns and black communities had insufficient machines creating very long lines while in white suburban Republican precincts there were sufficient machines that there was no wait. It might not be "fraud" but it is more than curious that in 2000 in Florida in some counties the machines in white precincts were programmed to reject ballots that overvoted to allow the voter to correct such a mistake while those in black precincts were not, so that the vote for that office, often president, was disqualified. It was not "fraud" but is was more than questionable that roads near voting precincts in some black areas had police checkpoints that just happened to be there at that point - this is an old tactic, equivalent to the voter challenges of a young William Rehnquist in Phoenix or uniformed people claiming they were enforcing voting security when "moderate" Tom Kean defeated Jim Florio for the position of Governor of New Jersey.

There are many things about which we can express our outrage. Occupy Wall Street is a legitimate and important protest. So are protests against the restrictions of civil liberties, and against the unwillingness of this administration to be more transparent and more willing to prosecute the wrongdoings of the administration that proceeded it.

The only way we can change things, short of revolution, is through winning elections. If we acquiesce in allowing false accusations of voter fraud to be used to exclude significant portions of the electorate from participating, we will have lost the battle, the election, before the first vote is cast.

It is a myth. No, it is a deliberate untruth.

So perhaps we need to change the title to reflect what is happening.

It is The Lie of Voter Fraud - the big lie, the Goebbels like approach of repeating an untruth often enough that people will come to believe it.

Editorials are nice.

We need to do more.

We need to fight back, and now.