CLEVELAND — FBI agents have searched the office of an Ohio group that supports voter registration efforts, seizing documents and computer files, a board member of the organization said Friday.
It's the latest action by the Trump administration connected to voting or election operations in the states and comes in a state that is expected to have hotly contested races this fall for governor and U.S. Senate.
Federal agents showed up at the Cleveland office of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative on Thursday and spent hours questioning staff, said Prentiss Haney, a board member of the grassroots organization. It was founded in 2007 and describes its mission as fighting for criminal justice reform, racial justice and an expansion of voting rights.
Federal agents also went to the homes of people who have worked with the organization, seeking interviews and information about alleged voter fraud, Haney said. He accused the agents of “intimidation tactics and harassment," and expressed concern that the investigation was designed to sow doubt in the coming elections.
The focus of the probe was not immediately clear, but a person familiar with the matter said Friday that investigators were examining potential fraud violations. The person was not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The FBI and Justice Department declined to comment on Friday.
The Justice Department, during President Donald Trump's second term, has launched several legal actions or investigations related to voting or state election operations.
The FBI has seized ballots and other records from the 2020 election for Georgia’s Fulton County and Arizona’s Maricopa County, and from the 2024 election in Michigan’s Wayne County. It also has been questioning election workers in Wisconsin’s Milwaukee County. All four are in presidential battleground states.
The Justice Department has sued at least 30 states and the District of Columbia after they refused to hand over detailed voter data that includes dates of birth and partial Social Security numbers. It has said in court filings that it wants the information so it can run it through a Department of Homeland Security program that checks U.S. citizenship, although the program's accuracy has been questioned. The Justice Department has so far been on a losing streak in its lawsuits seeking to extract the data from the holdout states.
Early in his second term, Trump also ordered the Justice Department to investigate ActBlue, the top fundraising platform for the Democratic Party.
Allegations of fraud in voter registration efforts are typically investigated by states and usually involve people working for groups that pay for sign-ups. Earlier this year, California officials opened an investigation into whether signature-gatherers were offering to pay people for signing a ballot petition. In 2025, Pennsylvania officials brought criminal charges against seven people for submitting fraudulent voter registration forms.
Ohio politicians respond
Democratic Senate candidate Sherrod Brown, Rep. Shontel Brown, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb and Democrat gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton were among the politicians who issued statements expressing concern and outrage.
Sherrod Brown called the raid deeply disturbing, stating that, "Federal law enforcement should never try to intimidate eligible voters from exercising their right to participate in democracy."
Shontel Brown expressed a similar sentiment, saying, "I am deeply concerned that this is an effort to use federal law enforcement to intimidate and halt voter registration and organizing efforts. This is an unprecedented attack on democracy."
Brown said this appears to be "part of a systematic effort by Trump and Kash Patel’s FBI to attack our elections and perpetuate more myths of voter fraud."
Bibb posted on X that he was "deeply troubled" by what happened and called for transparency. "If there is a legitimate basis for these actions, it should be disclosed. If not, the public has every right to question whether civic participation is being unfairly targeted."
Acton, who is running against Republic gubernetorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, said, "Any attempts by federal law enforcement to intimidate eligible Ohioans from registering to vote are unacceptable."
