Ms. Noe's Own Scandal: Wife of Ohio GOP fundraiser does some election ...

[paineinthearse]

Ms. Noe's Own Scandal: Wife of Ohio GOP fundraiser does some election reform of her own

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Ms._Noes_Own_Scandal_Wife_of_Ohio_GOP_fundraiser_does_some_election_reform_of_her_ow_0801.html

Larisa Alexandrovna

In yet another surreal twist in Ohio’s “coin-gate” scandal, the wife of Bush’s chief Ohio fundraiser, Tom Noe—who is currently embroiled in campaign finance and money laundering probes—surprised poll workers and observers alike by disrupting the ballot count during the 2004 general election, RAW STORY has discovered.

Bernadette Noe, who served dual roles as chairman for the Lucas County Republican Party and the Lucas County Board of Elections, sent twelve “partisans” into a warehouse on Election Day, according a memo authored by Ohio’s Director of Campaign Finance Richard Weghorst who was present at the time.

The assertion is part of a comprehensive investigation prepared for Ohio Republican Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell regarding reports of irregularities in Lucas County. The report found gross failures on the part of Ms. Noe’s board in preparation for and administration of November’s election. (Read the memo in PDF) http://rawstory.com/other/pdfs/lucasinquiryrawstory.pdf

The Board was “directly responsible for the inefficient and unorganized election process” in the county, the report said. Weghorst found they had failed to lock and secure ballots and voting machines; manipulated the three percent hand recount; and failed to properly remove Ralph Nader from county ballots.

more......

[sabra]

1. Coingate and Stolen Election are hand in hand...

[blm]

3. It takes LOTS of hush money to steal an election.

.

[blm]

2. Oh man, Larisa must be getting some great funnelled info.....I'd love to

know where it's coming from....although I do suspect she needs to keep them hidden.

Nods to Larisa.

[Cha]

25. That's right!

Props to Larisa!

[paineinthearse]

4. J. Conyers' 8/1 blog entry addresses "coingate"

see http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=1973328&mesg_id=1973328

[Justin54B20L]

5. "Welcome to Ohio, the corruptiest place on Earth!" -New State Motto IMO

[madrchsod]

9. i posted last week that Ohio is way ahead of Illinois in corruption

and it seems each week ohio is living up to my assertion. thank`s ohio!

[Justin54B20L]

10. Hehe, atleast we're well known for something =P

Ugh...it's so sad it's funny....

[Ysolde]

6. Will all this finally blow up in their faces?

How many more scandals do the American People need to realize that we don't have a democracy anymore?

[sabra]

7. We realize it, but do people outside of DU realize it?

[AtomicKitten]

8. This scandal SHOULD taint 2004 election results

as well as put Hackett over the top tomorrow. How can Congress ignore the mounting evidence of massive fraud in Ohio? Oh, that's right. It's led by Republicans.

[Supersedeas]

11. Nah, the stenographers have better things to shout-still dredging in Aruba

Cost in time, effort, and dollars covering missing blonde in Aruba


Cost in time, effort, and dollars covering election fraud in Ohio


You compare, FOX will decide.

[mod mom]

12. More on Lucas County,( OUTRAGEOUS!)

Notable info from the SOS Investigation on Lucas county:

-One-half of the ballots printed and used in the 2004 general election in Lucas county were stored in an open space on the fhird floor of the county warehouse with no Ecurity measures in place.
SOURCE: SOS Investigation on Lucas County BOE page 4



-Live ballots were delivered to polling locations a week in advance of the election. Although the ballots were retrieved, one board employee who was assigned to the warehouse informed the SOS staff that he did not believe all the ballots were successfully retrieved.
SOURCE; SOS Investigation, page 5



-Lucas County BOE failed to record or retrieve ballot stub numbers of absentee voters’ ballots as required by statute OH Revised Code 3505.23. It was reported by an elector that her mother had received not one, but three absentee voter ballots. there was no way to determine if similar incidents occurred and if so how many.
SOURCE: SOS Investigation, page 7




-October 4, 2004 was filing deadline for new voter registrations. At that point there were approximately 20,000 unprocessed voter registration applications with less than a month before the election. One mail tray containing 4,500-7,000 (estimates vary) unprocessed “Project Voter” registrations were discovered on or about October 18,2004.
SOURCE: SOS Investigation pg 10

***Of interest here is information obtained from the SOS website entitled ElectionsVoter/results 2003 and 2004 which show the # of registered voters number change from ‘03-’04 was 11,947 in Lucas County: reg voters 2003 in Lucas=288,190 ; registered voter in 2004=300,137.



-In late September or early October an employee of the Ohio Republican Party contacted Sam Thurber (*involved with politician wife Maggie Thurber in Noe scandal.) wanting to inspect and have copies made of all recently returned voter registrations, Ohio Republican Party offered to furnish volunteers to assist with copying postcards. No one at the Lucas County BOE can confirm that anyone was assigned to supervise Republican volunteers. On their second day of copying, a BOE employee, Jennifer Bernath, Democratic Booth Official) saw republican party volunteers peeling off the yellow return stickers applied by the post office. (Violation of RC 149.43 (B) (I) , and agruably a violation of 149.351.
SOURCE: SOS Investigation, pgs 18-19

*Among those whose donations have caught the attention of investigators are:

City Councilman Betty Shultz; former state representative Sally Perz, her husband, Joe, and her daughter, Allison; former county elections director Joe Kidd; county Auditor Larry Kaczala and his wife, Gina; County Commissioner Maggie Thurber and her husband, Sam; and two of Mr. Noe’s co-workers at Vintage Coins and Collectibles, partner Tim Lapointe and executive assistant Susan Metzger. Mr. Lapointe’s wife, Linda, also donated.

All of the above gave the campaign $2,000 except the Thurbers; each of them gave $1,950 to the campaign. The $23,900 in donations were made between Oct. 30 and Nov. 5, 2003.

Path of donations At issue is whether Mr. Noe gave people money in order for them to give to the Bush campaign, allowing Mr. Noe to exceed federal spending limits, law-enforcement sources said.
Source:
Toledo Blade - FBI Raids GOP Donor Noe's Condo
Friday, April 29, 2005




-The Swanton 3 poll book turned up missing and has never been recovered.
SOURCE: SOS Investigation pg 16


-The number of precincts in Lucas County for the November 2003 election was 530 precincts, at the time of the November 2, 2004 election there were 495 precincts.

[Jecks]

15. I love a good scandal,

Especially one that leads to a BushCo ouster.....

.....but I live in Lucas County. There is a couple of things you are over looking.

Kerry won this county by about 60 percent to 40 percent. If they were stealing an election in Lucas County they failed miserably.

The Lucas County board of elections is made up of 2 dems and 2 repugs....They all fell under criticsm for election failures.

[mod mom]

21. I would like to address your comments, 1. Every county in OH is made up

of the 2 dems/ 2 repubs. The OH SOS (Blackwell) has final approval of personnel(they serve at his discretion) and he also casts the deciding vote in a tie.

2. Yes Kerry did win Lucas County (132,537/220,190) 60.19% to Bush's (87,106) 39.56%, but that doesn't mean a large chunk of democratic votes weren't stolen. The fact that there were such egregious problems at the Lucas County BOE that Blackwell was forced to report on the investigation shows the extent of the possible damage.

Remember not only did Lucas County have Diebold, which the SOS investigation reports had problems, but the screen saver of Lucas County on election night brings into question whether there was electronic manipulation.

[ellie]

16. I wonder what

area the Swanton 3 poll book covers because I live in that area. When my DH and I voted, he made a joke about his ballot not being counted. The poll worker just looked at us like we were speaking a foreign language.

[mod mom]

18. Excellent! I have the raw numbers from a BOE disc, what can you

tell me about the area?

[adolfo]

23. Do you have a copy available?

[mod mom]

20. Lucas County # Precincts: 2003-530, 2004-495

Significant downsizing? The number of precincts in Lucas County for the November 2003 election was 530 precincts, at the time of the November 2, 2004 election there were 495 precincts. Fewer # of precincts equal less voters, right? WRONG! Lucas County had 288,190 registered voters in Nov 2003 and 300,137 registered voters in Nov 2004.

and read this:


Of Ohio’s 88 counties, 20 suffered a significant reduction — shutting at least 20 percent (or at least 30) of their precincts. Most of those counties have Republicans serving as Board of Elections director, including the four biggest: Cuyahoga, Montgomery, Summit, and Lucas.

Those 20 counties went heavily to Gore in 2000, 53 to 42 percent. The other 68 counties, which underwent little-to-no precinct consolidation, went exactly the opposite way in 2000: 53 to 42 percent to Bush.

In the 68 counties that kept their precinct count at or near 2000 levels, Kerry benefited more than Bush from the high turnout, getting 24 percent more votes than Gore did in 2000, while Bush increased his vote total by only 17 percent.

But in the 20 squeezed counties, the opposite happened. Bush increased his vote total by 22 percent, and Kerry won just 19 percent more than Gore in 2000.

<http://www.providencephoenix.com/features/other_stories/multi_1/documents/04259694.asp>

[tanyev]

13. Way to go, Raw Story!

:yourock:

[mod mom]

14. Bernadette Noe's connection to OH Attorney General Petro:

(who of course is involved in the investigation)

Mr. Petro has also acknowledged that Tom Noe's wife, Bernadette, may have contacted his office and successfully directed special counsel work to the law firm where she worked. He also considered the Noes to be friends.

//www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050605/NEWS24/506050367

[mod mom]

17. Congresswoman w 478 precincts (LC=495) gets 13,361 more votes than Kerry

Looking at the GEMS official results (from Lucas County BOE discs obtained through a public records request) I noticed a weird discrepancy:

First, Presidential results from Lucas:

Badnarik 294
bu$h 87,106 (39.56%)
Kerry 132,537 (60.19%)
Cobb 8
Schriner 2

TOTAL VOTES: 220,190 with 495 precinct in Lucas

Now.. there are 2 congressional districts in Lucas County: District 9 and District 5

Here are the results for DISTRICT 9 CONGRESSIONAL SEAT(which obviously includes Toledo):

Kaczala (R) 60,949
Kaptur (D) 145,998

TOTAL VOTES: 206,947 with 478 precincts

DISTRICT 5 CONGRESSIONAL SEAT:

Gillmor (R) 5,497
Weirsuch(D) 3,277

TOTAL VOTES: 8,774 with 17 precincts

********
Total Votes in the County for PRESIDENT=220,190
Total Votes for the county for CONGRESS=215,721

Now it is understandable that more people might vote for president while leaving a congress vote blank, but...

Total Dem Votes in County for President = 132,537 while
Total Dem Votes in County for Congress = 149,275

that equates to 16,738 more dem votes for congress than dem votes for president AND

Marcy KAPTUR IN DISTRICT 9 (WITH 478 PRECINCTS AND A TOTAL OF 206,947 POSSIBLE VOTES) HAD 13,461 MORE VOTES THAN KERRY!

[mod mom]

19. Lucas one of only 2 (of 88) counties w Diebold, check this out:

thanks to DUer jsamuel (look at Lucas county, remember Cobb only got 198 votes in entire state):

[slor]

22. Thanks for posting. n/t

[Carolab]

24. But, but, but, Gonzales says there IS no fraud in Ohio!!!

http://www.democrats.com/node/5489

(And so does the DNC.

Except the DNC says there was voter suppression, but Gonzales says no.)

[kittenpants]

26. WHOA! 12 partisan people including a Diebold employee sent by

Ms. NOE to the tabulator on election night!!! WTF. This needs to be investigated. Someone send this to the Blade - they'll look into it. I love the Toledo Blade.