Clay Aiken: A Big Fraud?

Idol runner-up embroiled in controversy over voting eligibility after ripping local GOP

Safe to say that Sarah Palin or whoever the Republicans put up for president won't be getting Clay Aiken's vote in 2012.

As a matter of fact, nobody will.

The ex-American Idol finalist has given up his voter registration in his native North Carolina after coming under fire from the GOP, which claimed he illegally cast a ballot in a local election.

Claude Pope, the chairman of the Wake County Republican Party, tells E! News that the county's election board launched a probe after learning that Aiken actually resided in nearby Chatham County, and therefore had been voting in the wrong district.

Aiken brought the controversy on himself, when he commented in his blog last month about a school board election won by Republicans.

"What happened to Wake County Schools?!?" he wrote on his blog. "Now that I have a kid I am so much more invested and I am EXTREMELY disappointed that so many selfish idiots ran and won seats on the school board. I hope we can get rid of them as soon as possible before they ruin my school system. Idiots."

Aiken, 31, also made similar comments to a local newspaper. It was the newspaper article, which included the singer's hometown, that tipped off the GOP about the possibility he was voting in the wrong place.

Pope, meanwhile, insists, the investigation has nothing to do with Aiken's liberal views.

"We've got no problem with Aiken at all as a performer and entertainer. He's a local boy. But it's not the right thing to do to vote illegally," says Pope.

Aiken's move to disqualify himself as a voter preempts any disciplinary by the board, which agreed unanimously at a hearing Wednesday to drop its probe after hearing from the star.