‘This Is Fraud’: Ohio Investigators Looking Into Suspect Voter Registrations Tied To Left-Wing Firm

Earlier this year, Cincinnati-area voters Cassandra and Harry Scott were puzzled to receive voter registration updates showing they had changed their address. They hadn’t. 

The Hamilton County Board of Elections had received two registration forms for the voters from Black Fork Strategies LLC, an Ohio-based “engagement firm that focuses on all aspects of community and electoral field work.” Elections Board staff made the requested changes in the voter rolls and, per Ohio law, sent notice to the voters at their “new address.” That’s when Cassandra and Harry Scott showed up at the BOE office. 

“Both of those voters appeared at our office during normal business hours after receiving those acknowledgement cards. The new address that was submitted on these registration cards was actually the place of business for Ms. Cassandra,” Elections Board Director Sherry Poland told Hamilton BOE members at a meeting last month. “She had not moved and did not complete the registration form.”

‘Trying to Defraud the Elections’

The false form was one of many suspect voter registration issues tied to the left-wing Black Fork Strategies. Election Board staff reached out to the company, which “provided information” on the canvasser responsible for the Scotts’ voter registration forms, Poland said. 

“We also received a registration form in the name of Henry Kissinger,” the elections official said at the public meeting. The statement was greeted by a smatter of laugher from some in attendance, likely at the thought of the late and renowned U.S. secretary of state registering to vote in Hamilton County. Staff compared the Kissinger listed on the form to voter registration and Bureau of Motor Vehicle databases. It was a mismatch every time, Poland said. Staff had more questions for Black Fork. 

Then Poland held up a thick stack of voter registrations. They all appeared to be in the same handwriting, and were submitted by the same canvasser. Poland did not return a request for comment from The Federalist, but she told her board at the July meeting that BOE staff met with Black Fork’s regional manager for Hamilton County to “show her what we were seeing and what was being submitted by her organization.”  

“We’re now bringing this to the board to see what next steps the board would like to take, and it would appear these need further investigation,” Poland said. The board agreed. 

“The first thing I want to point out is, you know, we use words like ‘anomalies,’ ‘suspicion,’ and everything else because we try to be PC, I guess. But this is fraud, outright fraudulent behavior,” said Hamilton County Board of Elections member Alex Triantafilou, who also serves as chairman of the Ohio Republican Party. “Who’s responsible or how they’re responsible, that will be up to somebody other than me. It’s plain and obvious to me when you get this many registration cards [holds up the stack] with the very same handwriting that someone is trying to defraud the elections process in Hamilton County.” 

Not just Hamilton County. Election integrity issues involving employees of a leftist company committed to “Building Long-Term Progressive Power,” have been popping up all over Ohio. 

Keep reading