On March 2, four Indiana officials in St. Joseph County were indicted for facilitating forged petitions in the 2008 presidential primary. One of the officials was Democratic County Chair in that important county (which includes South Bend). The other three were employees of the county voter registration office. They are charged with helping Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama get on the Democratic presidential primary ballot, by forging names of voters on the petitions.

Indiana requires 4,500 signatures for candidates in statewide major party primaries for ballot access, and 34,195 signatures for statewide independent candidates and the nominees of newly-qualifying parties. Any registered voter can sign any petition. This incident is one more piece of evidence that petition requirements as low as 4,500 can sometimes be formidable obstacles to ballot access. See this story. Thanks to Ryan Nees for the link.