Adding muscle to elections investigations

Editorial by the Burlington Times-News, May 27, 2014.

Tuesday the state Board of Elections announced the hiring of an FBI veteran to join a team of state investigators to target allegations of voter fraud and campaign finance irregularities.

It’s a move that makes sense.

Board Executive Director Kim Strach, no stranger to investigating corruption in elections, said Chuck Huber will join the staff in June. Huber, also an attorney and certified public accountant, spent 28 years with the FBI and certainly has the background for the job.

Strach has a knack for sniffing out election-related corruption and has worked with Huber before. Huber played a role in the investigations of former Gov. Mike Easley and disgraced House Speaker Jim Black. Strach was chief investigator for the Board of Elections during that time.

The hiring comes at an interesting time.

For her part, Strach has been asking state lawmakers for more firepower when it comes to examining possible voter fraud cases, especially after a recent multistate crosscheck of voter registration records. She said Huber will help the agency fight voter fraud and locate campaign finance law violations.

While critics contend there’s nothing to allegations of election fraud and that most suspicious circumstances can be explained, we think it’s worthwhile to investigate every credible complaint of double-voting, fraudulent absentee ballot requests, improper campaign contributions, misuse of campaign dollars, registration of noncitizens, voter intimidation and other mischief.

There’s a lot to keep track of beyond simply asking voters to show an ID at polling places on Election Day. To keep up with it all, Strach is asking for five additional investigators. While that number might be an expense beyond the state’s current budget constraints, she should and probably will get some of those positions, The General Assembly is dominated by Republicans who have made allegations of voter fraud a priority. Strach is also a Republican.

But politics aside, it’s a good move.

Strach’s concern is no doubt sparked by the Kansas secretary of state’s crosscheck of states’ voter databases, which revealed 765 cases of matching Social Security numbers in North Carolina. She’s also concerned about a backlog of homegrown complaints, including some against sitting lawmakers.

Her office has just one compliance specialist and one investigator. Being shorthanded, she says, has created delays in probing of hundreds of thousands in campaign donations from people involved in Internet sweepstakes — a matter that also involves GOP lawmakers.

Being able to verify complaints or allegations arise is critical.

“If we put something out there and we are able to identify … problems, it’s important to me to be able to follow through on it, and be able to resolve it and let people know what we found and what we didn’t find,” Strach has said.

Finding quality investigators with experience in elections matters is a step in the right direction.

http://www.thetimesnews.com/opinion/our-opinion/adding-muscle-to-elections-investigations-1.324677