Fraud alleged for suspicious voter registrations

Ohio election board member claims fraud, while secretary of state dillydallies on a year-old inquiry.

A company, or at least an employee of a company that has solicited and submitted more than 20,000 voter registrations to the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections through July was accused last month of voter fraud by a member of the Hamilton County (Ohio) Board of Elections (BOE). A stack of “suspicious” registrations submitted to the Hamilton County BOE by Black Fork Strategies LLC, was referred in July to the Ohio Secretary of State (SOS) Frank LaRose’s Public Integrity Division for investigation.

Meanwhile, on July 17, 2023—more than a year ago—the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections referred 18 suspicious voter registration cards submitted by Black Fork to LaRose’s Public Integrity Division for investigation. As of Wednesday, July 31 the registrations remained under investigation, the Cuyahoga BOE acknowledged. That’s a year later, for 18 registration cards.

Black Fork in 2023 submitted 4,647 voter registrations to the Cuyahoga County BOE after soliciting 5,875 in 2022. Through August 2, the company submitted 20,096 voter registrations in 2024. Of those, about 25 percent were new registrations. The remaining 15,103 were re-registrations of voters who already had been registered.

There may be some possible explanations for why a voter who was previously registered to vote would re-register. One possibility is that a voter was previously registered but became inactive at some point, then re-registered to vote this year. Most voters re-registered by Black Fork, however, appear to have voted at least once since 2020 and therefore would not have been made inactive.

More about this year’s batch of 20,096 Cuyahoga County registrations from Black Fork later.

“Outright fraudulent”

Like in Cuyahoga County last summer, the Board of Elections of Hamilton County—where Cincinnati is located—was tipped off to suspicious activity by a couple who received a letter from the BOE to acknowledge their change of address. Black Fork had submitted the change of address purportedly on their behalf. The couple informed the BOE that they hadn’t moved and that the change of address form was submitted without their knowledge.

Sherri Poland, Hamilton County director of elections, at BOE’s July 9, 2024 board meeting, said Black Fork Strategies LLC has been conducting a voter registration drive in Hamilton County and that suspicious registrations submitted by the company have been reported throughout Ohio.

You can view the meeting video below. Cue to 1:38.

Poland also cited a registration form submitted in the name of “Henry Kissinger.” A comparison of voter information on the registration form didn’t match the voter’s information in the Bureau of Motor Vehicles database.

“It was a mismatch on every item listed—any identifying information listed on this registration form,” Poland said.

Finally, Poland produced a stack of new voter registrations from Black Fork, all of which appeared to be filled out in the same handwriting. Poland said the BOE has meet with Black Fork about the matter, but that further investigation would be needed.

Joe Mallory, BOE member, noted that other counties in the state reported having the same problem with suspicious registrations from Black Fork and suggested that the matter be referred to LaRose’s Public Integrity Division for further investigation.

Alex Triantafilou, Hamilton BOE board member and chairman of the Ohio Republican Party, agreed, but added, waving the stack of suspicious registrations, “we use words like anomalies and suspicion and everything else. We try to be PC I guess, but this is fraud. This is outright fraudulent behavior. Who’s responsible? How are they responsible? That’ll be up to 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’s any press watching, voter fraud is real. It does happen.”

Triantafilou voted with the rest of the board to refer the matter to the SOS, but said he wants to board to monitor the progress of the investigation, and to place a progress report on the board’s next meeting agenda. He emphasized that the board has the authority to take its own action should LaRose's office lag in handling the matter

Asking Poland for more information about LaRose’s Public Integrity Division, Triantafilou noted that “we reserve the right to subpoena folks if we want to. We also always reserve the right to send it to the [county] prosecutor’s office. And also the prosecutor’s office doesn’t need us to act. If they see evidence of a crime, which I would argue is potentially evidence of a crime here, they could themselves act in this matter.”

Poland said the Public Integrity Division is a relatively new department that LaRose created to handle “these exact type situations. They have full-time investigators that are dedicated to investigating any types of suspicious irregularities or fraud in the election process. And we are encouraged when we come across those situations to refer to his office. I think it’s another tool for counties that may not have the resources to properly investigate these types of situations.”

If LaRose’s new team of special investigators handles the Hamilton County referral as quickly as it has Cuyahoga County’s case from a year ago, the board in Cincinnati may expect an answer in time for the 2028 presidential elections.

Cuyahoga County

At its board meeting on June 21, 2023, Cuyahoga County BOE Director Anthony Perlatti noted that multiple counties in Ohio have encountered issues with Black Fork apparently submitting voter registration cards from deceased individuals. Perlatti said a motion would be made at the July 17, 2023 board meeting to refer “issues regarding registration cards submitted from Black Fork” to LaRose’s new Public Integrity Division.

That motion was made and approved at the July 17 meeting.

The referral to the SOS included 18 “irregularities in voter registration cards and address updates.”

In addition, Inajo Davis Chappell, board member, asked for an update of a case involving a voter who was being prosecuted by the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor for voting in both Florida and Cuyahoga County. At the July 9, 2024 BOE meeting, Triantafilou referenced a similar case in Hamilton County.

“I know that we just recently found out that one of the cases we referred to the [Hamilton County] prosecutor’s office got felony indicted and prosecuted,” Triantafilou said. “I was pleased to hear that somebody who had voted in Florida and in Ohio had actually been prosecuted. The media is not going to tell you that, but we found it out here and I was pleased to hear that somebody had followed up.”

Although concerns about suspicious registrations from Black Fork have sprung up across Ohio, no evidence of fraud has been indicated in the 20,096 registrations the company solicited so far this year. But it apparently hasn’t been investigated by the BOE.

Whether a registration is new or a re-registration can be determined by two fields on the county’s voter database. One field reflects a voter’s original registration date. Another reflects “last registration date.” The “last registration date” would be the date that Black Fork submitted the registration to the BOE. If the two fields are the same, it should indicate a new registration. Many of the “last” registration dates are inexplicably within days or weeks of the original registration. On 20 registrations, the “last” registration date was earlier than the original registration date.

Of around 15,100 Black Fork re-registrations, 697 originally registered on “January 1, 1901.” I assume this will be explained as a clerical error, however, under election law, a voter record must reflect the date when a registration is delivered to the board of elections. If a now 144-year-old resident who was just re-registered by Black Fork originally registered in 1901, it wasn’t on January 1. The county offices would have been closed that day.

Of the 20,096 Black Fork registrations, the oldest was a North Randall resident who first registered to vote on August 29, 1905. Two of the re-registrants are more than 100 years old. Of the total, 72 Black Fork registrations are listed as republican, 1,296 are listed as democrat and 18,725 are listed as no party.

What is Black Fork Strategies?

Black Fork Strategies LLC is a for-profit limited liability company formed in 2018 by community organizer Kirk Noden.

On February 26, 2024, Black Fork Strategies registered the trade name Field Forward Ohio with the Ohio SOS. Black Fork was named as the registrant on the application, but the receipt was mailed to Community Building Strategies LLC, a Youngstown company that Noden registered as a for-profit limited liability corporation on April 2, 2016. The trade name Field Forward Ohio was cancelled four months later on June 17, 2024. Again, Black Fork Strategies was named as the registrant, but the paperwork was mailed to Noden’s Community Building Strategies.

On July 28, 2018, Community Building Strategies LLC registered the fictitious or trade name Pro Scooter Republic. On March 11, 2019, Community Building Strategies LLC registered the trade name Jawsmith Brewing Co. perhaps the legal name of Noden’s Battleground Taproom and Mexican Kitchen, in Kent, Ohio. On the trade name application, the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, a Youngstown non-profit, is listed as a general partner of Community Building Strategies LLC.

The Ohio Organizing Collaborative was established in 2007 as the Ohio Leadership Training Institute, with Noden listed as statutory agent and board member. The name was changed to Ohio Organizing Collaborative in March 2008.

The non-profit’s certificate was cancelled by the secretary of state in 2013 for failure to file a statement of continued existence. The non-profit was reinstated late that month, and in May 2013 registered the trade name Ohio Prophetic Voices.

On May 28, 2020, Ohio Organizing Collaborative registered the trade name Ohio Student Association.

On June 8, 2020, the non-profit registered the trade name People’s Justice Project. That trade name was cancelled three months later.

Kirk Noden is on the board of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative. His for-profit, Black Fork Strategies LLC, received $1,358,000 from the non-profit collaborative for consulting services in 2022, according to the collaborative’s federal tax filing. The collaborative also paid $462,122 for consulting services to Noden’s Community Building Strategies LLC in 2022.

In 2021, Noden’s Community Building Strategies LLC received $419,750 for consulting services from the Ohio Organizing Collaborative. It also received $299,500 in 2020.

Pastor Michael Harrison is listed as the principal of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, which, in 2022, reported $6.3 million in revenue, up from $3.8 million in 2021. Prentiss Jamar Haney and Molly K. Shack are co-presidents and executive directors.

Hamilton County BOE Meeting