FBI Executes Search Warrant at Ohio Organizing Collaborative Office in Voter-Fraud Investigation

The FBI executed a search warrant at the office of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative on Thursday as part of a voter-fraud investigation, multiple sources familiar with the matter told CBS News. Around the same time, federal agents began arriving at the homes of employees and volunteers to conduct interviews, said Prentiss Haney, a board member authorized to speak for the group.

Agents asked questions focused on voter fraud during those interviews.

Haney said more than 125 federal agents went to the homes of volunteers, civil rights leaders, community leaders and staffers. Agents followed people in their cars, followed children to school, knocked on doors and called phones, he said. The Ohio Organizing Collaborative is a civil rights organization that registers voters and advocates for criminal and economic justice reform.

Haney described the operation as an "assault" against civil rights groups that work to engage people in the democratic process. A Justice Department official said search warrants are authorized by a judge and that statements by any organization or in the media amount to unfounded speculation because the target of an investigation does not see the affidavit until after an indictment.

The Justice Department has sought to investigate voter-fraud cases across the United States in the lead-up to the midterm elections.

Minnesota's secretary of state received grand jury subpoenas seeking a limited number of individual voter records as part of a federal investigation into noncitizen voter registration and unlawful ballots. The FBI recently attempted to interview the director of elections in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin.