Obama campaign counsel Bob Bauer has sent a letter (.pdf) to the Department of Justice requesting that Special Prosecutor Dannehy -- who is currently investigating the firings of U.S. Attorneys -- expand her investigation to look into whether any administration officials have worked in a joint effort with the McCain campaign and the RNC in legitimizing the allegations of vote fraud.

In the letter, Bauer asks for an inquiry into what he calls a "systematic development and dissemination of unsupported, spurious allegations of vote fraud." On a conference call with reporters, Bauer went further in explaining their position.

"These [vote fraud] allegations do not mean illegal voting," Bauer said. "Nobody really expects thousands of Mickey Mouses or Tony Romos to show up at the poll to vote this fall. But at the end of the day, the reason that you're getting the daily calls, the reason -- quite apart from political desperation -- that they're resorting to this issue and not to others, is to utilize the mantra that they've hit upon and the organization whose name they plan to make famous as a proxy for attacking the electoral process itself."

Bauer went on to say that the allegations are an "unprecedented effort to essentially sap the American people of confidence in the voting process" and that "an attack on the voters cannot go undefended."