This story was originally published by Signal Ohio. Sign up for their free newsletters at SignalOhio.org/subscribe.
Allies of an Ohio progressive advocacy group that is being probed by the FBI are hoping to use news of the investigation to mobilize voters this November.
Innovation Ohio launched a social media ad campaign this week referencing the June 11 raid of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative. The investigation’s exact focus remains unclear, but the FBI previously asked elections officials in at least Cleveland and Columbus about voter registration work performed in 2023 and 2024 by a company owned by an OOC founder.
The ads, which feature clips of TV news coverage, describe the raid as “a deliberate attempt to scare Ohioans, suppress participation, and silence those fighting to protect our freedom to vote.” It directs viewers to Hands Off Ohio, a website that’s raising money to continue the OOC’s voter registration drives in Ohio and to help targets of the investigation push back publicly.
Innovation Ohio President and CEO Michael McGovern said the Hands Off Ohio coalition is taking its message directly to voters after previously holding in-person rallies. The ad campaign costs at least $100,000, and is being targeted at progressive voters in the state, McGovern said. In addition to social media platforms, the ads also will air on streaming video devices.
“We think Ohioans are smart enough to see through the BS. Rather than allow themselves to be intimidated, we believe these authoritarian tactics will motivate everyday people from across the state to come together to defend their freedoms,” McGovern said.
The Ohio Organizing Collaborative and its political arm, the Ohio Organizing Campaign, are major progressive groups in Ohio, helping fund voter registration drives, ballot initiatives and other forms of political organizing and advocacy.
The groups also serve as a conduit for tens of millions of dollars coming from large national foundations that fund liberal political causes across the country. The Ohio Organizing Campaign spent $9.6 million in 2024, the group’s public tax filings show – of which $9.1 million went to Black Fork Strategies, a political firm owned by Ohio Organizing Collaborative founder Kirk Noden.
Black Fork, in turn, was the subject of several complaints by elections officials in Cuyahoga, Franklin and Hamilton counties that year, among others. Elections officials referred their concerns to Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, saying Black Fork’s canvassers committed multiple instances of apparent voter registration fraud, including changing voter registrations without those voters’ knowledge, and in a handful of instances, registering dead people to vote. Elections officials said they detected the questionable registrations and blocked them. An elections official in Cuyahoga County told Signal Statewide in an interview last month that none of the registrations resulted in fraudulent voting.
Federal officials haven’t commented on the case, and officials with the Ohio Organizing Collaborative have denied wrongdoing.
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