The American Spectator

MAKING RESERVATIONS br> It isn’t just South Dakota that is facing potential major fraud investigations leading into the November elections. According to a Republican National Committee staffer, the party is monitoring get out the vote programs in at least two other states with pivotal campaigns. “We’re looking at Louisiana and New Mexico. Both of them have had problems in the past and we’re hearing they’re having problems again,” says the staffer.” /p>

The South Dakota problems came to light a couple of weeks ago. The state Democratic Party reported huge increases in voter registration and chalked it up to the national party’s get-out-the-vote campaign. But the state attorney general is looking into how particular voter registration programs focused on Indian reservations, where turnout for elections tends to be low.

New Mexico has experienced similar problems with its Indian reservations and Democratic Party. And recall the state’s 2000 presidential election, which saw boxes of ballots mysteriously “disappear” on election night as Gore and Bush ran neck and neck. Ultimately Gore won the state by a few hundred votes. Today, former Clinton Energy Secretary and Monica Lewinsky interviewer Bill Richardson is running for governor, and lately has been sinking in the polls. Republicans are concerned that the state Democratic Party may attempt to boost the turnout on behalf of Richardson.

Similar problems are a concern for Republicans down on the Bayou, where the GOP hopes to oust Sen. Mary Landrieu, or at least push her to a runoff against a Republican candidate.

“It may be that they can beat us fair and square,” says a Republican pollster, who will be in New Mexico on election day monitoring polling places. “But the Democrats’ record in some of these places is that they’d rather cheat, win and run. We can’t afford to let them get away with it this time.”

Already the South Dakota Republican Senate candidate, Rep. John Thune, has said that if the voter registration fraud story gets any more serious, he will be prepared to go to court over the election’s outcome. If he loses.