Later in the Atlantic article,

Voicing concerns about fraud often paves the way for intimidation tactics like poll watching that depress turnout, especially among minorities and less educated voters who tend to vote Democratic.

While suppressing voter turnout among minorities, accusations of fraud also bring out the rabid base of voters convinced that those folks are buying votes, registering dead people to vote, and stuffing ballot boxes. That firing up the base tactic is one that Karl Rove has used to win elections since way back in a 1994 election for the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court:

Rove explained how this was to be done. "Our role was to try to keep people motivated about Perry Hooper's election," the staffer continued, "and then to undermine the other side's support by casting them as liars, cheaters, stealers, immoral--all of that."

The Atlantic article does not explicitly connect the dots to the firings of the U.S. Attorney in New Mexico, David Iglesias, who ostensibly was fired for not politicizing federal investigations by publicizing investigations into Democrats right before the 2006 elections. Nor does the Atlantic article mention the firing of U.S. Attorney John McKay in Washington, who was perhaps fired because of his refusal to open investigations into Voter Fraud during the 2004 pugilistic Washington State Governor's race.

And of course, there is Ohio, in 2006 -- where though no U.S. Attorney investigated Voter Fraud, certainly there is enough circumstantial evidence of real systematic voter suppression of minorities to keep us all busy tabulating the outrages.