October 24, 2004: Washington Post Columnist Cites Disproven Allegations of Voter Fraud as Fact

Conservative Washington Post columnist George Will claims that documented voter fraud took place in the 2002 Wisconsin gubernatorial campaign, when a Democratic candidate’s campaign attempted to buy the votes of a group of mentally challenged citizens (see October 22-31, 2002). Will cites a new book, Stealing Elections, by John Fund, as his source. For his part, Fund cites an unsigned Wall Street Journal op-ed as his source in the book. Fund served on the Wall Street Journal editorial staff in 2002, and may well have written the editorial himself. Neither Fund nor Will reveal to their readers that the voter fraud allegations were found baseless (see November 2, 2002). According to Fund’s book as quoted by Will, a local television station “filmed Democratic campaign workers handing out food and small sums of money to residents of a home for the mentally ill in Kenosha, after which the patients were shepherded into a separate room and given absentee ballots.” Fund’s description is almost entirely inaccurate, as documented by local news stories that followed the initial reporting. [Washington Post, 10/24/2004; Media Matters, 10/25/2004]