Voting

IN: Despite GOP Warnings of Voter Fraud, "It Was a Good Clean Election."

Zachary Roth | November 6, 2008, 10:58AM

In Indiana, Republican fears of voter fraud appear to have been unfounded.

Before the election, GOP secretary of state Todd Rokita, a fast-emerging TPMmuckraker favorite, had called on law enforcement authorities to investigate ACORN, claiming he had found evidence of widespread registration fraud perpetrated by the group.

And the Lake County Republican party had filed suit, unsuccessfully, to shut down early voting "satellite" centers in three Democratic cities in the northern part of the county. The GOP argued, among other things, that allowing early voting at the satellite centers, rather than limiting it to the county seat, which is in a more Republican area of the county -- could increase the chances of fraud.

But yesterday, the man who led the Republicans' legal effort in Lake County, party chair John Curley, told the Chicago Tribune: "The election is over and it was a good clean election."

Curley even added, according to the paper, that early voting "might be the wave of the future."

The final margin of victory for Obama in Indiana was just 22,986 votes -- close enough that Republicans might have been expected to raise concerns over fraud if such evidence had existed.