What Didn't Happen In Ohio

Russ Baker
May 05, 2005

Russ Baker —an investigative reporter and essayist—is a longtime TomPaine.com contributor. He is involved in the development of a new not-for-profit organization dedicated to revitalizing investigative journalism in America. To read more about the problems in the 2004 presidential election and proposals for reforming our electoral system, see Best Of TomPaine: Election Irregularities In 2004.

Back in January, I wrote a piece for TomPaine.com questioning widely circulated claims that the election in Ohio had been stolen. I had done some poking around, anticipating that at least some of the frightening anecdotes filling our mail boxes and raging on talk radio would be borne out. They weren’t. In spot checks on a few popular fraud anecdotes, I found credible alternative explanations such as incompetence, structural problems, politicization of decision-making and other failings— but no evidence of deliberate fraud designed to hand the election to Bush.