Overall, Smith held the state by just over seven thousand votes, although opponents of Smith believed that electoral fraud was widespread in the Black Belt. State judges Hugh Locke, Horace Wilkinson and Ira Champion argued that up to seventeen thousand ballots for Hoover had been rejected. No recount, however, was ever contemplated by authorities. This result constitutes the second-closest presidential election in Alabama since Reconstruction behind that of 1980, another Republican landslide this time affected by the personal vote in the South for Jimmy Carter.