How Bush Rigged Ohio Election - The Noe Factor
By late afternoon on November 2, 2004, nationally, all the exit polls showed John Kerry winning with 50.8% of the votes
and showed George W Bush with 48.2%, meaning Kerry had a 2.6% lead over Bush.
But when the vote counts came in at the end of election day, Bush had 50.9% of the votes, and Kerry had 48.1%, meaning
Bush received 2.8% more votes than Kerry.
According to Dr Ron Baiman, PhD, from the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois in
Chicago, who has 16 years of experience teaching statistics to both graduate and undergraduate college students, there
would be about 1 chance in 900,000 of that kind of statistical error occurring.
Ohio was the most important state to Bush. He could not win without it. He spent so much time in the state that people
began to wonder whether he had left a forwarding address to Ohio.
At his last campaign rally in the state, a mere 4 days before the election, Bush bestowed special praise on a husband
and wife team who in hindsight, were more helpful to Bush than any other politicians in Ohio, as far as rigging the
election.
“I want to thank my friends Bernadette Noe and Tom Noe," Bush told the audience at the Toledo rally, "for their
leadership in Lucas County.”
After the speech, Bush and his wife met with Tom Noe and his wife backstage, to thank them for their "work on the
campaign," according to the October 30, 2004 Toledo Blade.
As it turns out, Bush had a lot to be thankful for. During the campaign, Noe earned the title of “Pioneer,” which means
he raised at least $100,000 for the Bush-Cheney campaign.
However, Tom Noe was rewarded by Bush with an appointment as chairman of a committee of the US Mint, that advises the US
Treasury secretary on designs and themes for coins and congressional medals.
According to a Treasury Department press release Noe was recommended for the appointment by Speaker of the House Dennis
Hastert (R-Ill.) and nominated by Treasury Secretary John Snowe.
Noe was the guy to know in Toledo-area politics for many years. He chaired not only the Lucas County Republican Party,
but also the Lucas County Board of Elections and in 2004, the regional Bush-Cheney campaign.
As a regional chairman of the campaign, according to the April 8, 2005 Toledo Blade, Noe had frequent contact with Karl
Rove, met with the President, and received White House invitations.
According to e-mails obtained by the Blade, from Ohio Governor Bob Taft's office, Noe used his influence to obtain an
invitation to a White House ceremony honoring the Ohio State football team and once in the White House, Noe was invited
to attend an "Ohio political strategy session."
In 2002, Bernadette Noe, took over the post of chairman of the Lucas County Board of Elections, and is largely credited
with playing a key role in rigging of the 2004 election in Ohio.
While Tom Noe was still BOE Chairman, he made the acquisition of electronic voting machines, bragging about how fast
they were installed. But in 2004, even before election day, Lucas County was up to its neck in problems with the now
infamous Diebold opti-scan vote counters.
The dirty tricks in Lucas Country started long before election day. For instance, the Democratic headquarters was broken
into and key voter data was stolen.
In the months before the election, when voting rights activists tried to challenge the Republican Secretary of State,
Ken Blackwell's partisan handling of provisional ballots in court, Tom Noe intervened on Blackwell's behalf. Blackwell
also served as co-chair for the Ohio Bush-Cheney campaign,
While Tom handled the court business, Bernadette worked to reverse the Ohio tradition of allowing provisional ballots to
be cast in precincts other than the one in which voters were registered and helped disenfranchise many inner-city Toledo
Democratic voters.
On November 2, 2004, during the election, inner city voting machines broke down and polls opened late. The Toledo Blade
reported that the sole machine at the Birmingham polling site in east Toledo broke down at about 7 am, and that per
order of Secretary Blackwell, there were no paper ballots available for backup.
At one school the voting machines were locked in the principal‘s office, and the principal just happened to call in sick
election day. Another school in west Toledo temporarily ran out of ballots.
In precinct after precinct, African-American voters were disenfranchised as the waiting lines grew to three, four and 5
hours and thousands were forced to leave without voting.
The Blade discovered that in the summer of 2004, 28,000 voters were "erased" from the Lucas County registration rolls
and found the purge included voters like Barbara and Ralph George "who first registered to vote for John F. Kennedy in
1960 and had lived in the same East Toledo house for 44 years."
After a job well-done in Lucas County, in January 2005, the happy Noe couple co-sponsored Ohio’s inaugural ball in
Washington, and according to the Blade, "Mr. Bush and Mr. Noe embraced. The President then hugged Mrs. Noe."
However, on April 8, 2005, it started raining on the Noe’s parade when the results of an investigation into the Lucas
County election turned up so much dirt that it forced Secretary Blackwell to fire the entire Lucas County Board of
Elections.
The investigation cited over a dozen areas of "grave concern" including failure to maintain ballot security; inability
to implement and maintain a trackable system for voter ballot reconciliation; failure to prepare and develop a plan for
the processing of the voluminous amount of voter registration forms received; issuance and acceptance of incorrect
absentee ballot forms; and failure to maintain the security of poll books during the official canvas.
Over the years, Tom Noe and his wife, were equally generous to all Republican candidates for state office, federal
office, and even judicial seats on the Ohio Supreme Court.
In fact, five of the seven Supreme Court justices were Noe beneficiaries receiving over $23,000 in contributions from
the husband and wife team. In 2004, Tom was even the campaign chairman for Justice Judith Ann Lanzinger.
Noe was known to be a close associate of Ohio Senator George Voinovich and Ohio Governor Robert Taft, and had long been
called northwest Ohio's "Mr. Republican."
And Noe's generosity to Ohio politicians did not go unrewarded. In addition to his leadership positions in the GOP, he
was appointed to the Ohio Turnpike Commission, the Bowling Green State University board, and the Ohio Board of Regents,
which has authority over state's educational system, including the management of funds.
In 1997, Noe even gained access to state funds when the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation started a program, allowing
for investments other then stocks and bonds, and Noe cut a deal to buy and sell rare coins as an investment for the BWC.
It seems that Noe was given authority to invest $50 million in coins and other collectibles such as baseball cards, and
under the contract, 80% of the profits were to go to the worker's compensation fund, and the remainder to Noe's
business.
The Toledo Blade was the first to run a story on Noe’s gig with the state on April 3, 2005.
Within 20 after Blackwell fired the BOE, it started pouring on the happy couple. On April 28, 2005, the Blade reported
that Gregory White, US attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, had confirmed that his office, in conjunction with
the FBI, was looking into Tom Noe's fundraising activities, as chairman of the Bush-Cheney campaign in northwest Ohio.
"We have publicly confirmed the investigation of Mr. Noe in relation to some campaign contributions," Mr White told the
Blade.
Parallel to the Federal probe, the Blade noted, was the investigation of the Lucas County and Franklin County Offices of
the Prosecutor into Noe's inability to account for $10-12 million of the BWC’s funds.
Less than a month later, on May 26, 2005, state law enforcement officials, acting on behalf of prosecutors, raided Noe's
company, Vintage Coins and Collectibles, trying to find out what happened to the $10-12 million missing from the $50
million belonging to BWC.
The distinct possibility has been raised several times, that Noe may have funneled some of the mysteriously-missing
money to politicians.
According to the May 31, 2006 Toledo Blade, the Noes have given more than $200,000 to politicians over the last 16 years
and their “giving increased substantially," the Blade noted, "after the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation in 1998 gave him
the first of two $25 million payments to invest in his rare-coin funds."
In April 2005, the Blade reported that two of the state's investments, gold coins valued at $300,000, had been lost in
the mail. On May 31, 2005, the Ohio Attorney General's office reported that nearly $7 million worth of coins were
unaccounted for.
Noe apparently has a bad habit of losing rare coins. According to court documents filed in a previous case involving
lost coins, on the evening of November 30, 1996, Noe claimed that $203,588 worth of coins and currency were stolen out
of the backseat of his car and tried to collect on the loss with a claim to an insurance company.
About a month and a half before the theft, Noe had purchased an insurance policy from the Homestead Insurance Company,
which included coverage for the loss of inventory by way of theft, that had gone into effect on October 17, 1996.
However, Homestead refused to pay the claim, citing two different exclusionary clauses. Noe sued the company and lost,
and then he appealed that decision and lost.
On April 27, 2005, the federal probe into Noe's funneling of money to the Bush campaign reached a turning point when FBI
agents raided Noe’s home, and searched the joint for 3 hours looking for evidence of violations of federal campaign
laws.
In the summer of 2005, Tom Noe, was described by the Free Press, as a high-roller crony of Ohio Governor Taft, Ohio
Senator George Voinovich and President Bush. But that that ain‘t all.
It seems as though the Noes had a give-and-take arrangement with just about every Republican politician in the state. On
June 5, 2005, Ohio’s Republican Attorney General, Jim Petro, acknowledged that Bernadette may have successfully lobbied
his office to direct thousands of dollars in contracts to her law firm to collect debt on behalf of the state.
According to the Free Press, Noe had even once donated money to Attorney General Petro‘s campaign.
The news surrounding the disappearance of state funds intermingled with campaign finance violations involving state
officials kept getting worse and worse over the summer. On June 8, 2005, media reports said that the BWC had concealed
over $215 million in losses and that Governor Taft had been aware of the situation for months.
A week later, on June 14, 2005, Governor Taft sent a letter to the Ohio Ethics Commission admitting that he failed to
disclose perks and favors from Noe, stating that it has, "recently come to my attention that I failed to list a number
of golf outings or events on my financial disclosure forms over the past several years."
On July 22, 2005, Attorney General, Petro, said Noe stole millions of dollars by using a "Ponzi" scheme to fabricate
profits.
On August 27, 2005, Noe took a swipe at Taft, when his attorney released a statement saying that on May 13, 2001, Noe
told the Governor about the rare-coin fund he operated for the BWC at a Toledo area golf club, after Taft had claimed
that he did not know anything about the coin investment with Noe until April 3, 2005, when the Toledo Blade first
reported it.
The first hammer dropped on October 27, 2005, when Noe was officially charged with illegally funneling $45,400 to the
Bush-Cheney campaign that was raised at a $2,000-a-seat fund-raiser in Columbus, Ohio in October, 2003, by Noe making
contributions in the names of others.
The scheme allowed Noe to ignore the $2,000 limit on individual donations by passing the money through 24 friends and
associates, described as "conduits" by investigators.
Some of the known "conduits," are 4 current or former Ohio elected officials, including Toledo City Councilman Betty
Shultz, Lucas County Commissioner Maggie Thurber, former state Representative Sally Perz, and former Toledo Mayor Donna
Owens.
Court records also show that Noe’s brother-in-law, Joe Restivoand, and 2 former aides to Governor Taft also served as
funnels.
All of the conduits signed donor cards that stated they were the source of their donations even though each knew that
Noe made the contributions, prosecutors said. Each politician now faces state ethics charges for failing to disclose the
money they received from Noe.
On May 31, 2006, critics took it as a sign that the hammer may be ready to fall on a whole slew of crooked politicians
when Noe entered a guilty plea in the Federal US District Court in Toledo to 3 felony charges related to violating
campaign finance laws and told the judge that he agreed "to accept responsibility to spare my family and friends the
further embarrassment of any additional court proceeding."
On June 1, 2006, the Blade reported that Bush and the RNC returned a total of $6,000 in direct contributions from the
Noes and said, “State and federal politicians from Mr. Taft to Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, the Republican nominee
for governor, to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger - have returned tens of thousands of dollars in contributions
from Noe and his wife.”
At the time of Noe's indictment, a senior Justice Department official said the case represented the largest campaign
money-laundering scheme prosecuted by the DOJ since the new campaign finance laws were enacted in 2002.
Ironically, its now known that Bush's reelection could have been derailed by a reporter at the Toledo Blade, the same
newspaper that has been out front on the investigation into this whole matter from the beginning.
According to Bill Frogameni in Salon.com on October 6, 2005, the Blade's chief political columnist, Fritz Wenzel, was
told of Noe's campaign finance violations as early as January 2004, but never gave the information to the Blade.
He learned of the violations from a Republican by the name of Joe Kidd, who was then the director of the Board of
Elections, who was actually fueding with Bernadette Noe at the time, and retaliated against her by telling Wenzel that
Noe was illegally funneling money to the Bush-Cheney campaign and running a questionable coin investment with the state.
According to Salon, sources confirmed that Kidd told them he had this conversation with Wenzel at the time.
However, as it turns out, both Wenzel and his son had personal relationships with the Noes, who even attended the son's
wedding.
In fact, in March 2004, a couple of months after Wenzel got the tip, his son was elected to the Lucas County Republican
Central Committee, and from April 15, 2005, to the end of May 2005, Wenzel's son was on the payroll of the Ohio
Republican Party.
Wenzel's silence did not go unnoticed. A month before Wenzel left the Blade, in a speech at the Lucas County
Republicans' annual dinner, Bernadette announced that Wenzel would be leaving the Blade to run his consulting firm and
wished him well.
It is also now known that many Republican officials in Ohio suppressed the news of the campaign finance violations to
save the Bush campaign. The Blade has learned that the US Attorney’s Office knew of the allegations against Noe about 3
weeks before the election.
Moreover, by October 15, 2004, the FBI was involved, and the Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice in
Washington had sent an e-mail to the US Attorney's office in Cleveland, to authorize the investigation.
According to the Blade, records released in June 2005, show that high-ranking aides to Governor Taft also worked to
suppress revelations about the BWC’s $215 million hedge fund loss in the final days before the election.
On September 27, 2004, documents show that the BWC’s administrator-chief executive, James Conrad, learned about the loss
and in an October 26, 2004, e-mail, Conrad said that the “entire value” of the portfolio was down about $225 million.
As for the media getting information about Noe shenanigans, he had the whole state tied up in knots. When a case by the
Blade seeking access to Noe-related records ended up before the Ohio Supreme Court, all five of the justices who had
received contributions from Noe had to recuse themselves.
Critics say the scale of the scandal at the BWC could have definitely made a difference in the presidential race. But
instead of alerting the public, on election day, a Columbus law firm was hired as special counsel, by Republican
Attorney General Petro’s office, to investigate the hedge fund matter.
On February 13, 2006, the final shoe dropped and Noe was indicted on 53 felonies. A grand jury charged Noe with 22
counts of forgery, 11 counts of money laundering, 8 counts of tampering with records, 5 counts of grand theft, 6 counts
of aggravated theft, and one count of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity under the Racketeer Influenced and
Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
According to a February 13, 2006 article by the Associated Press, Ohio Inspector General Tom Charles said investigators
know where the money went, but would not say where.
"Investigators," the AP said, "were looking into whether any of the stolen money was donated to political candidates."
On May 31, 2006, State Democratic Senator Marc Dann, told the Toledo Blade that he thinks Noe will be able to cut a deal
because he had so much information on other people involved.
“He knows where a lot of the bodies are buried, and not buried. He knows what Jim Conrad knew about this, who in Bob
Taft’s office facilitated the second $25 million, who in George Voinovich’s office facilitated the first $25 million
investment, and so he has a lot of information that only he knows about the rare-coin investment,”
Senator Dann said. If the recent history of revelations is any indication, many more bodies may indeed be unearthed.
So far the investigation has led Governor Taft and 2 of his former aides to plead no contest to ethics charges. On July
29, 2005, Brian Hicks, Taft’s former Chief of Staff, and Cherie Carroll, Hicks' executive assistant, admitted that they
took gifts from Noe.
Hicks pled no contest to knowingly failing to list on financial disclosure forms that he and his family stayed at Noe's
home in Florida in 2002 and 2003, and Carroll pled no contest to a misdemeanor charge of "recklessly" accepting meals
from Noe valued at over $500.
On February 9, 2006, the Ohio Elections Commission referred 2 other former Taft aides for prosecution. H Douglas Talbott
faced charges for, and admitted, that he funneled money from Noe to three Ohio Supreme Court Justices and accepted a
$39,000 loan from Noe, and J Douglas Moorman was referred because he failed to report a $5,000 loan from Noe.
On June 1, 2006, the Blade reported that Bush and the RNC returned a total of $6,000 in direct contributions from the
Noes.
“State and federal politicians,” the Blade said, “from Mr. Taft to Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, the Republican
nominee for governor, to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger - have returned tens of thousands of dollars in
contributions from Noe and his wife.”
However, the Bush gang is not too anxious to turn over any more money. Instead, the Blade said, “Mr. Bush and his
political advisers are taking a wait-and-see approach.”
"We have and will continue to fully cooperate with the investigation," said Aaron McLear, a spokesman for the Republican
National Committee. "We will make appropriate transfers as directed by the court."
The latest fatality in the rare-coin scheme, is Terrance Gasper, the BWC’s former chief financial officer, who played a
central role in the scheme and is reportedly cooperating with federal and state authorities as part of a plea agreement
in which he pleaded guilty on June 7, 2006, to a felony count of violating the RICO Act by accepting money and other
gifts and perks in exchange for doling out millions of dollars in state investments to firms.
Gasper also pleaded guilty to a felony count of money laundering for accepting $25,000 from Noe and a misdemeanor charge
of failing to disclose sources of income, gifts and other perks from 1999 to 2005, on his annual ethics filings.
The RICO charge carries a 20-year maximum prison sentence, and Gasper faces a maximum 5-year sentence and a $10,000 fine
on the state charges, according to the Toledo Blade.
According to June 7, 2006, article by the Associated Press, “Prosecutor Ron O'Brien said he expects more people to be
charged this month.”
And the AP reports that “Gasper said he was "more than willing" to help prosecutors,” so who knows who will end up in
the slammer next.
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Evelyn Pringle
evelyn.pringle@sbcglobal.net
(Evelyn Pringle is a columnist for OpEd News and an investigative journalist focused on exposing corruption in
government and corporate America)