FBI Raids

These are the things we will look back on when we wonder where the groups who help people register to vote have all gone.

On Thursday, June 11, FBI agents searched the Cleveland office of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, a group that has been helping people register to vote since 2007.

They say more than 100 FBI agents spread across Ohio to Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton, and Youngstown, knocking on the doors of staff and volunteers, some without warrants, taking phones and computers.

The questions, the group says, all focused on voter fraud and appeared to be related to their voter registration efforts.

Election officials routinely catch registration problems when they build the voter rolls. Voter fraud itself, study after study has shown, is nearly nonexistent.

In February, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose gave the Justice Department records on nearly 8 million Ohio voters, including birthdates, partial Social Security numbers, and license numbers. Now, four months later, the raids have begun.

More broadly, Donald Trump’s FBI has now moved on election operations and voter groups in Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio.

These are the things we will look back on when we wonder where the groups who help people register to vote have all gone.