After a two-year investigation of voter fraud, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has only 26 minor cases of voting irregularities to show for his expenditure from a $1.4 million grant. Some of that money also was spent on other cases.

All of those cases involved Democrats and 18 of them were instances where lawful voters cast proper ballots that were collected and handled by someone else. That’s technically illegal unless the carrier’s name and address is on the envelope, but it’s a petty prosecution.

Actually, the paltry results of Abbott’s initiative are a good thing. It shows that vote fraud is hardly the “persistent problem” Abbott claimed it was when he announced the investigation in January 2006. The outcome of Abbott’s efforts was published by The Dallas Morning News this week.

Republicans in the Legislature have been pushing for a more stringent voter identification law in Texas. Although the issue died in the chaos at the end of the 2007 session, it is sure to return in January. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who has made tougher voter identification a cornerstone of his administration, will see to that.

Nationally, tougher voter identification laws are favorite issues for Republicans, though there is little evidence of widespread voting fraud. Democrats contend that the GOP effort is a way to suppress turnout, since many of the voters who lack sufficient identification are the poor and elderly and minorities - who tend to vote Democratic.

Abbott’s misguided investigation lends credence to the Democrats’ argument. Several of the cases prosecuted by the attorney general’s office involved people helping homebound senior citizens get and mail absentee ballots.

Is this the great voter fraud that Abbott said triggered an investigation into “a dramatic increase in indictments for voter fraud” in his initial press release? If so, it wasn’t worth the time or the money.

In Texas, residents must show identification to obtain a voter’s registration certificate that is to be presented when voting. Properly registered voters who don’t have the registration card when they go to vote still must show another approved form of identification to cast a ballot.

So it is highly unlikely that Texas is brimming with illegal voters stealing elections. In his two-year probe, Abbott uncovered only eight cases of ineligible voters or manufactured votes. They included one woman who voted for her dead mother, one man who voted twice and three women who used false addresses to get registration cards.

While it is proper to find and punish anyone voting improperly, if those eight cases are as bad as it gets, Texas is safe from a takeover at the ballot box.

When Republican lawmakers in January again demand tougher regulations on voters to discourage fraud, they should look at the results of Abbott’s assault on what he termed an epidemic of voter fraud.

Voting is a right and a privilege, and Texas legislators should make it easier to vote, not deliberately try to suppress it. There is no need to stiffen voter identification beyond what Texas already requires. And, clearly, there is no epidemic of voter fraud as the attorney general first alleged. His own investigation proved it.