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.
