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An accusation of voter fraud involving the residents of a state home for the developmentally disabled in Kinston making the rounds on right-leaning e-mail listservs in North Carolina is completely untrue, say state mental health officials, the local elections director and Lenoir County Republicans.

"Bus loads of mentally retarded and severely handicapped patients from a state funded facility called The Caswell Center were being transported to the voting location and that their black Democratic state employee aids were voting for them," said the e-mail, signed by Lester Jarman, a Kinston insurance agent. "They claimed they were assisting; but, how can institutionalized mentally retarded patients know how to vote much less make a reasonable logical decision? Most of them cannot read or write and many of them are also blind. This must be illegal!"

The e-mail also alleged that "Democratic supporters" were passing out shots of liquor to voters in the parking lot of the early voting site, Michael Biesecker reports.

Neither accusation is true, according to Lenoir County Board of Elections Director Dana King.

B.J. Murphy, the vice-chair of the Lenoir County Republican Party, has sent out an e-mail attempting to dispel the rumors about the Caswell Center. Jarman has also sent out an e-mail backing off his original accusations.

Neither of those messages appears to have had as wide a distribution as the original, however.

More after the jump.