Zachary Roth October 27, 2008, 3:41 PM

Last week, Indiana’s Republican Secretary of State, Todd Rokita, sent a letter to federal, state and local authorities asking for a criminal investigation into over 1400 suspicious voter registration forms submitted by ACORN in Lake County, a key Democratic stronghold.

Now, the Obama camp has responded. The Times of Northwest Indiana reports that in a conference call with reporters this afternoon, Bob Bauer, the campaign’s top election lawyer, said: “We have seen an orchestrated effort on the part of Republican officials across the country to work with the McCain-Palin ticket and the Republican National Committee to disseminate this message of fraud.”

Bauer called the effort “a fear campaign.”

Lake County has already been a hotspot for GOP attempts at voter suppression. Last week, the state Supreme Court declined to support a Republican bid to shut down early voting centers in three strongly Democratic cities in northern Lake County.