Federal agents have now turned to the money behind the Ohio Organizing Collaborative. A source familiar with the probe said the FBI served a subpoena on America Votes, a Washington-based group founded by prominent Democratic leaders that works to turn out voters across the country.
America Votes confirmed the subpoena in a statement on Wednesday. It said the request was “asking for basic records related to funding of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative” and that the group had been told it “is not a target of the investigation.” Its tax filings list contributions to the Ohio collaborative of no less than $500,000 over recent years.
The subpoena points to a wider inquiry than first appeared. The collaborative is a statewide nonprofit, founded in 2007, that works on voting rights. Its sister organization, Ohio Organizing Campaign, says it registered nearly 160,000 Ohio voters in 2024 and calls that the largest independent voter registration program in the country.
Last week, FBI special agents searched the collaborative’s offices. They questioned staff members and volunteers about possible voter registration fraud, according to Prentiss Haney and others familiar with the investigation.
Haney is a board member and former director of the group. He said the bureau seems to want information from America Votes and from other voting rights groups that have worked with his organization.
“This is very far reaching,” he said. “They seem to be fishing for any- and everything related to civil rights and voting rights infrastructure.” He added that he did not know how far the investigation extends.
The FBI and the Justice Department did not respond to emails seeking comment.
A midterm year backdrop
The probe lands months before the November midterm election, at a time when the Trump administration’s questioning of American voting is drawing concern. Trump has said many times, without evidence, that fraud cost him the 2020 presidential race. Earlier this month he accused Democrats, again without evidence, of rigging the California primary. FBI agents have also seized 2020 ballots in Fulton County, Georgia, and secured election records in Maricopa County, Arizona.
In Ohio, Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, has been a leading voice for closer scrutiny of possible fraud. Last year he referred more than 1,200 cases to the Justice Department for criminal investigation, most of them tied to alleged unlawful registration or voting. LaRose said he found more than 1,000 noncitizens on the voter rolls, 167 of whom appeared to have voted in federal elections between 2018 and 2024.
Those numbers are allegations, not proven cases. Earlier rounds of LaRose referrals produced few prosecutions. The AP reported that of 621 criminal referrals sent to Ohio’s attorney general, prosecutors won indictments against just nine people for voting as noncitizens over a decade.
Studies, audits and court cases across the country have found no evidence that voter fraud happens on a scale anywhere near what would be needed to change a modern statewide or federal election, except in very unusual cases.
