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Ohio NGO's Irregular Voter Registrations Exposed by Citizen Activists
Wendi Strauch Mahoney
01 Aug
It seems Black Fork Strategies is at it again in Ohio for the November 2024 election.This is despite a referral in 2023 from the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections (BOE) to the Secretary of State’s Public Integrity Division for allegedly re-registering voters who didn’t initiate the requests. Thus far, there has been no word about the results of the referral from the SoS.
The progressive get-out-the-vote NGO helped register 11,000 Cuyahoga County voters in 2023. The County BOE “flagged at least 18 irregularities in their voter records, including mismatched signatures and address changes voters said they didn’t initiate,” according to local reporting.
On Monday, Marcell Strbich contacted True the Vote to report records in Cuyahoga indicating Black Fork has “registered 17,656 voters, 4818 of which are new registrations.” in 2024. The other 13k are modified registrations, a rare occurrence, and a“huge red flag,” according to Strbich. He says Black Fork Strategies has operated in the state since 2018.
Strbich and Allision Nicolai are now looking at Black Fork’s voter registration activities in Hamilton County where many irregular voter registrations were submitted. The video below from the July 9, 2024, Hamilton County BOE meeting shows board members discussing what they have uncovered, mainly because two citizen volunteers took the time to take up the torch.
Three issues arose during the Hamilton BOE meeting. The questionable voter registration activity came to light during a discussion led by Hamilton County’s Director of Elections Sherry Poland. According to Poland, One voter registration canvassed and submitted by Black Fork volunteers showed a change in a couple’s voter registration address. The change was executed without their permission.
When a registration is submitted, counties in the state mail a card confirming the elector’s address and information. If the information on the card is incorrect, the voter is asked to contact the county board of elections, which is what this couple did.
The couple in question went to the board of elections to seek clarification about why and how this happened. It turns out, that one of the couple’s addresses was changed to a business address, which is not allowed in Ohio, nor was it requested in their case.
In another instance, a canvasser for Black Fork Strategies submitted a fraudulent registration in the name of “Henry Kissinger.” Not a single element of the registration matched any record of a Henry Kissinger on file at the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV).
“Poland also presented a stack of voter registrations, about an inch thick, all of which reportedly had identical handwriting on the registrations,” as pointed out at the end of the video clip by BOE member and Ohio Republican Party Chairman, Alex Triantafilou. At one point, Triantafilou pointed to the press to explain the fact that fraud in elections is “real.” Triantafilou continued,
“First thing I want to point out,” said Triantafilou, “Is that we use words like anomalies and suspicion and everything else because we try to be, you know, PC, I guess. But this is fraud. This is outright fraudulent behavior. Who's responsible? How they're responsible. That will be up somebody other than me.”
But it’s plain and obvious to me when you get this many registration cards with the very same handwriting that someone is trying to defraud the elections process in Hamilton county. So, to the extent that there is any press watching; voter fraud is real. It does happen. It happens often times in the form of phony registrations all in the same writing. So, yes, that happens.
Poland also noted Black Fork Strategies is operating voter registration drives “throughout the state of Ohio.” Nicolai shared with TTV that she has confirmed Black Fork is currently operating in Hamilton, Franklin, Cuyahoga, and Montgomery counties,– with some of the largest urban areas in the state. She is in the process of investigating Black Fork’s activities in counties with over 175,000 registered voters.
With FOIA requests, Nicolai is trying to get to the bottom of several questions concerning Black Fork’s voter registration drives. Some of her questions are as follows:
Is Black Fork one of the 70 entities that operated in 19 states under GBI Strategies, now well known because of their alleged fraudulent activities in Michigan?
What has Hamilton County done about the irregular submissions? Have other counties besides Cuyahoga experienced the same?
Who authorizes Black Fork’s operations?
What source of income is used to compensate its canvassers?
Has the AG been notified and has SoS LaRose issued any directives?
These types of submissions pose significant threats to a free and fair 2024 election, in part because of the way Ohio’s removes bogus records from the rolls. The process leaves a gaping hole in the election system, with the opportunity to use these fraudulent submissions as a way to submit fraudulent ballots. Nicolai stressed that organizations that harvest ballots fraudulently care more about the ballot than they do the vote. Strbich says it is a civil rights issue because it “disenfranchises voters” and nullifies valid votes.
“Ohio elections processes under Secretary of State Frank LaRose state that voter registrations for which the Board of Elections has sent a confirmation notice to but has not had a response FROM, are in "Active-Confirmation" status, and such a voter "is a fully qualified elector and eligible to engage in the activities of a registered voter (i.e., sign a petition, request an absentee ballot, etc.) [emphasis added].”
“Election watchers,” Strbich continued, “Have taken note recently that current processes allows absentee ballots to be mailed to addresses that are KNOWN not to match, as long as address on the request for absentee ballot matches the incorrect address on the registration.”
“In Ohio, the information on the registration does not have to be correct or valid for it to be processed as an absentee ballot. It just has to be the same. It is a major Achilles Heel in the system and the SoS knows it.”
There are many other irregularities in the state’s voter rolls, not the least of which are potentially fraudulent non-citizen credentials. As of March 31, 2024, Nicolai and her team have found “236,424 non-citizen credentials” in the state, or about 1000 non-citizen credentials per month.
How does Nicolai know they are non-citizen credentials (driver’s licenses and IDs)? “BMV responded to my records request on Ohio driver’s licenses and IDs in circulation on April 1, 2024,” Nicolai explained. “This report is run for the SoS to conduct his “annual non-citizen audit” (which was completed in May. Our code for this is 3503.152. It requires the BMV to provide this data to the SOS.”
SoS LaRose promised to purge the state’s rolls of non-citizen voters. In May, LaRose announced his office would remove 137 non-citizen voters from the rolls. The obvious question is why is he only finding 137 when citizen volunteers are finding over two hundred thousand?
Founder of True the Vote, Catherine Engelbrecht says Black Fork is just one of countless NGOs exploiting the gaps in our election system to pad the voter rolls and it has been going on for a long time. It is why TTV initiatives like Scan.Check.Protect and IV3 are so important.
“From ACORN to the Voter Participation Center, exploitation of the voter rolls is a tale as old as time. We must do all we can to get the voter rolls as accurate as they can be prior to the upcoming election. This should be a top priority for every American nationwide,” said Engelbrecht when told about Black Fork Strategies “GOTV” effort.
True the Vote has submitted 811,846 elector challenges nationwide as of July 30 with 7,893 challengers in 1,511 counties. The top states for challenges are Texas, Georgia, and Arizona.
Engelbrecht wrote in a recent newsletter that TTV is ardently committed to elections Americans can trust,
“We are all in. We will leave nothing on the field.”
“Hundreds of millions will be raised by candidates and PACs for online messaging and flurries of lawsuits. But THERE IS NO REPLACEMENT for rolling up your sleeves, putting on your waders, and engaging in the battle that is happening on the ground. That’s where we are. That’s where we’ll stay. Tip of the spear.”
“We will never quit.”
Thank God for volunteers like Strbich and Nicolai across our great nation who are engaged locally; ready to ensure our elections are free, fair, and lawful regardless of political stripes.