FBI raids – FBI agents searched the Cleveland office of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, seizing documents and computer files and questioning staff, while board member Prentiss Haney accused the investigation of intimidation and harassment tied to election-year pressure
CLEVELAND — For hours on Thursday, FBI agents were inside the Cleveland office of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, pressing questions to staff and taking documents and computer files, a board member of the grassroots group said Friday.
Prentiss Haney, a board member of the organization, said federal agents showed up at the office and spent hours questioning staff. The Ohio Organizing Collaborative, founded in 2007, describes its mission as fighting for criminal justice reform, racial justice and an expansion of voting rights.
Haney said federal agents also went to the homes of people who have worked with the organization. seeking interviews and information about alleged voter fraud. He accused the agents of “intimidation tactics and harassment. ” and said he fears the investigation is designed to sow doubt in elections as hotly contested races approach this fall for governor and U.S. Senate in Ohio.
The focus of the probe was not immediately clear. A person familiar with the matter said Friday that investigators were examining potential fraud violations, but the person was not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The FBI and the Justice Department declined to comment on Friday.
The search in Ohio follows a series of Justice Department and FBI actions connected to voting and state election operations during President Donald Trump’s second term. 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 has also been questioning election workers in Wisconsin’s Milwaukee County, all of which are presidential battleground states.
The Justice Department has also 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. In court filings. the Justice Department said it wants the information so it can run it through a Department of Homeland Security program that checks U.S. citizenship, even as the program’s accuracy has been questioned. The Justice Department has so far faced losses 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.
Fraud allegations tied to voter registration efforts are typically investigated by states and often 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.
Across these actions, the sequence is stark: federal teams have been collecting records, interviewing workers, and pressing for data—while local advocates on the ground argue the pressure is landing at exactly the wrong time.
FBI Ohio Organizing Collaborative voter fraud investigation Cleveland voter registration election security Justice Department ActBlue Prentiss Haney