Mitt Romney on Monday told Republican rival Mike Huckabee to quit "whining" after Huckabee accused Romney of trying to suppress turnout on Super Tuesday.

Both candidates are vying for win some Super Tuesday states in an effort to deny John McCain a decisive victory that would nearly wrap up the delegate count he needs to win the Republican presidential nomination.

Huckabee's accusation followed Romney's remarks to FOX News last week, in which the former Massachusetts governor said: "A vote for Huckabee is a vote for McCain, and if they want John McCain as their nominee ... that's exactly what the vote would do."

Huckabee then cast Romney's comment as an attempt to keep voters from going to the polls.

"If you try to discourage people from voting for somebody, what else would you call it? Isn't voter suppression when you try to keep people from voting a certain way, by anybody's definition? ... Isn't that voter suppression, suppressing the vote, pushing it down, keeping people from feeling comfortable and going and making a vote? I think that's exactly what it is," Huckabee told reporters during a stop in Chattanooga, Tenn., on Monday.

But Romney, speaking in Atlanta, dismissed the charge, saying Huckabee has misused the term.

"First a couple of rules in politics. One, no whining. And Number 2, you get them to vote for you. And so I want them not to vote for Mike Huckabee and not to vote for John McCain and to vote for me. ... That's not voter suppression. That's known as politics," Romney said. "I want people to vote, but I want them to vote for me."

FOX News' Serafin Gomez and Shushannah Walshe contributed to this report.