If John McCain and the Republican Party were supporting a nationwide vote fraud conspiracy, what do you think would be heading up the news each day? The so-called mainstream media would make sure you never heard the end of it.

Well, there is such a conspiracy underway, except that it is tied to Barack Obama and the Democratic Party. And that's why you've heard relatively little about it -- and when you have, the media have largely accepted at face value the Obama campaign's pooh-poohing the conspiracy, accusing the GOP of voter intimidation.

In 10 or more states, police are investigating the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, better known as ACORN. It's a group of far-left rabble-rousing bullies who secure millions in federal largesse to advance their "grass-roots" housing programs, which often involve intimidating local banks into providing credit to poor neighborhoods that can't pay back the loans.

But ACORN is best known for its voter-registration drives. The group pays canvassers to register as many names as possible. Never mind if they're authentic: Mickey Mouse and the Dallas Cowboys are just some of the tens of thousands of bogus names that have been dumped on local election boards around the country this year. Of course, those names are easily spotted as fraudulent, but many others are not -- which, due to the confusion sown by ACORN, makes it easier for fraudulent voters to show up and vote on election day.

ACORN has been engaging in this shady, if not flat-out criminal, enterprise nationwide for more than 30 years. It's not just going on under our noses; it's right in front of our eyes. Although many ACORN activists have been convicted of voter fraud in the past, the group merrily skates on because it's protected and nourished by Congress, particularly leftist Democrats like Barack Obama.

The Democratic presidential nominee's ties to ACORN began when he was a young lawyer and Chicago community organizer. He even represented ACORN in a lawsuit against the state of Illinois, which had opposed postcard registration and a new "motor voter" law because of the potential for voter fraud.

More recently, Obama promised community organization groups, including ACORN, that if elected president he would let them shape his Cabinet choices. And earlier this year, his campaign donated more than $800,000 to an ACORN-affiliated organization.

Utterly outrageous. Obama should be ashamed of his affiliation with ACORN, not promoting it. No exaggeration: ACORN activists are destroying the integrity of the electoral process.

At a minimum, all of ACORN's voter registrations should be thrown out like rotten potatoes. Taxpayer funding, never deserved in the first place, must be withdrawn, and its nonprofit status revoked. The notion that ACORN is a nonpartisan volunteer organization working for the common good is ludicrous. Its political action committee has enthusiastically endorsed Obama for president. How partisan is that?

If Congress were serious about removing corruption from the electoral system, it would do a lot more than discipline ACORN. It would try to ensure that all voters are legal. "Motor voter" and mail-in voting laws and the like invite fraud -- they must be abolished. No one outside the board of elections office should even be allowed to register. And no one should ever be allowed to be paid to gather registrations, as ACORN has done.

Sadly, we have to now require that all voters register themselves. ACORN has ruined it for everybody else.

But if people aren't willing to make that much of an effort, then they shouldn't be voting in the first place.