# Ohio Organizing Collaborative The Ohio Organizing Collaborative (OOC) is a Cleveland-based pro-democracy organization founded in 2007 — a coalition of roughly 18 progressive community groups with members in every major Ohio city. It runs statewide voter-registration and civic-participation programs (including its Democracy Builders initiative), focusing on communities that have historically been disenfranchised, and works against partisan [[Gerrymandering]] in the state. Michael Waldman of the [[Brennan Center for Justice]] identified it as the **leading voter-registration group in Ohio**, crediting it with registering roughly **100,000 voters in 2024**. ## The June 11, 2026 FBI raid On **June 11, 2026**, the [[FBI]] raided the OOC's Cleveland offices; Heather Cox Richardson reported roughly **100 FBI agents and other federal officers** were involved. Agents then went to the homes of board members, staff, and volunteers, where they seized computers and phones, took documents, and questioned the people they found. The search warrant said they were looking for **voter fraud** — an offense the [[Brennan Center for Justice]] has repeatedly shown to be vanishingly rare (a person is "more likely to be struck by lightning" than to commit it). The Bureau did not publicly detail the alleged conduct. The raid drew swift condemnation from Ohio Democrats — including Rep. Shontel Brown, Ohio Democratic Party chair Kathleen Clyde, and multiple statewide candidates — who characterized it as an intimidation operation. Brennan Center president Michael Waldman connected it directly to [[Project 2025]], which called for using the [[Department of Justice]] to go after state election officials and voter-registration groups in order to push the myth of widespread voter fraud and deter people from voting. Coming a week after the June-22-letter's other election stories — the [[SAVE Act]] SAVE-system ruling and the [[American Prosperity Alliance]] primary-spoiler network — the raid fit a through-line of federal power turned against voter participation. ### What the ICE files add (October 2026) ICE records released to [[Democracy Forward]] in October 2026 show a parallel federal track in Ohio. A June 2026 HSI status report says HSI's Cleveland office and the [[FBI]] were jointly investigating Black Fork Strategies, an Ohio canvassing firm the report calls "suspected of voter registration fraud," had identified seven companies acting as "consolidation centers" for canvasser data, and were "finalizing investigative plans." The documents do not name the OOC. See [[ICE Voter Records Collection]]. > [!note] Stub > Minimum-viable page anchoring the June 2026 FBI-raid story. Expand with the OOC's member organizations, its anti-gerrymandering ballot-initiative work, and the raid's investigative outcome. ## See Also - [[Voter Suppression]] — the strategic frame - [[Brennan Center for Justice]] — documented the group's registration record and the raid's context - [[Project 2025]] — the blueprint that called for using DOJ against voter-registration groups