INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A lawyer for Indiana Republicans warned Wednesday that courts might eventually throw out disputed absentee votes being cast in the Democratic stronghold of Lake County, raising a new legal cloud over polling in this presidential battleground state.

Democratic leaders including an adviser to Barack Obama's campaign, meanwhile, accused Republicans and John McCain's campaign of dirty tricks aimed at suppressing votes in Indiana and creating unfounded fears over possible vote fraud in the northwestern Indiana county with a long history of political corruption.

A judge sided with labor unions and Lake County's Democratically controlled election board Tuesday in ordering satellite, in-person absentee voting centers opened immediately in the largely Democratic urban centers of Gary, Hammond and East Chicago. The Indiana Supreme Court said the dispute belonged in a different court, and attorneys for the two parties parried over a judge to hear it.

A spokeswoman for the high court said late Wednesday that attorneys had not been able to agree on a special judge in the case, so the state Supreme Court would appoint one.

"The Supreme Court has the authority under trial court rules to appoint a special judge in this case and the court will do so," said Kathryn Dolan.

Republican attorney David Brooks said Indiana election law was stringent on the matter of counting disputed absentee ballots, and it was irresponsible for Democrats to open the early voting sites before the courts determined whether they were legal.

"The Democrats in the partisan zeal don't seem to care whether these votes are in jeopardy," Brooks said.

Indiana Democratic Chairman Dan Parker and former state chairman Kip Tew, an adviser to Obama's campaign in Indiana, said Republicans were resorting to dirty tricks and scare tactics.

"This is coordinated effort by the McCain-Palin campaign and Republicans to suppress votes," Tew said in a teleconference with reporters to address the Lake County legal dispute.

Republican presidential candidates for 40 years had been able to count on winning Indiana. No Democrat has won the state since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

That dynamic changed this year when Obama, the senator from neighboring Illinois, targeted the state's 11 electoral votes. Polls now show the race a tossup or McCain slightly ahead.

A strong showing in Lake County, next to Chicago, is key to an Obama victory, but vote-counting there already has come under national scrutiny once this year. In May, late returns delayed the results of the presidential primary between Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, who won by a narrow margin.

Republican representatives on the county election board agreed to the satellite early voting sites for the May primary but not for the general election, saying they made vote fraud more likely in the Nov. 4 election. That sparked the legal battle in which Lake Circuit Judge Lorenzo Arredondo ordered them open Tuesday, trumping an earlier order by GOP-appointed Superior Court Judge Calvin Hawkins that had barred the centers from opening.

The Indiana Supreme Court late Tuesday threw the matter back into Hawkins' court while giving attorneys the option of choosing a different court, and that remained unresolved Wednesday. The Supreme Court also ordered the satellite centers to remain open while the matter is pending.

"The Republicans would have you believe that this case is about voter fraud. Nothing can be further from the truth," Parker said. He noted the satellite centers were in court clerk offices in the three cities and that voters must show driver's licenses or other photo ID cards before being allowed to vote. Indiana has one of the toughest voter ID laws in the nation.

"The lawyer of the Republican Party said that they would even go to cancel the votes of those who participate in this process. I think that clearly shows the intent of the Republican Party in this case. They are desperate to hold on to the electoral votes here in Indiana," Parker said.

Tew said a Republican dissent also blocked the opening of an early voting center to serve Ball State University students in Muncie. Delaware County GOP chairwoman Kaye Whitehead has said she was worried that it would encourage early voting by uninformed students whose votes might be bought with hot dogs.

"They need to stop with their dirty tricks, they need to stop with the voter suppression," Tew said.

Kevin Ober, executive director of the Indiana Republican Party, said the charges did not deserve a response.

Ober said Indiana elections historically have been a cooperative effort by the two major parties but that Democrats, by opening the disputed satellite voting centers, had abandoned that tradition.

"The best way to approach this is to let the courts finish their deliberations before we make any accusations around which votes would count and which votes wouldn't," Ober said.