The Montgomery County Board of Elections is investigating a large case of possible voter registration fraud, after receiving more than 100 “suspicious” registration cards from a single organization, many that appeared to have false or nonexistent addresses.

Board of Elections Director Betty Smith said the registrations were turned in by The Ohio Organizing Campaign, which listed a Poe Avenue address in Dayton. The OOC is tied to the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, which describes itself as “a statewide organization that unites community organizing groups, labor unions, faith organizations, and policy institutes across the state.”

Jennifer Sconyers, spokeswoman for the OOC, said the group’s staff is working hard to maintain good quality control in its voter registration program.

“When our organization found out that there was an issue with one employee submitting questionable voter registration cards, that employee was immediately terminated,” Sconyers said in a prepared statement. “We are committed to working with the necessary authorities and are being cooperative.”

The OOC turned in hundreds of registration cards in July. Smith said Board of Elections staff began their normal review and discovered that many of the cards listed voter home addresses on nonexistent streets, or on real streets, but with nonexistent house numbers.

Smith said a BOE supervisor spoke to an OOC representative, and the parties believed all of the suspicious registrations were turned in by a single person.

BOE Deputy Director Steve Harsman said there was a clear pattern on the suspicious cards, with many of them featuring similar handwriting. Harsman, who has been county BOE director or deputy for more than 12 years, said he’s never seen a larger single instance of suspicious registrations.

The BOE is now spot-checking some of the phone numbers on the registration cards to confirm that this is not a case of mere address mistakes, something board officials indicated was unlikely.

“If these are not (real people), I’m inclined to turn it over to the sheriff’s office,” said BOE Chairman Thomas J. Ritchie. “This kind of fraud just shouldn’t be tolerated.”

Harsman emphasized that this case was, at worst, registration fraud. He said actual voter fraud, where someone votes twice in the same election, is very rare because of the exact safeguards in the registration process that caught this anomaly.

Smith said Greene County election officials are currently investigating a single case of possible voter fraud, where a person allegedly voted in both Montgomery and Greene counties this March.

Greene County Prosecutor Stephen Haller said Monday that he expects to hear this week whether that case will be referred to his office for possible prosecution.