State budget beefs up election crimes prosecution

The program would run at least two years and create a new job for an "investigative consultant" who would work with local district attorneys on election law cases.

"I think this is an important step in recognizing that these types of case require a technical expertise that most district attorneys offices do not have," Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman, who is prosecuting the 9th District case, said Wednesday.

"There have been referrals over the years from the State Board of Elections ... that would have benefited from this additional help," she said.

Former State Elections Director Kim Strach's name has been bandied about for the position. Freeman said Wednesday that Strach "has a tremendous amount of expertise in this area" and that she'd expect her to be a candidate.

Strach said in an email that she was pleased to see the item in the budget and that she's "actively looking for opportunities to do meaningful work."

"This certainly sounds meaningful but it’s not a position yet and if it does in fact become a position I will certainly keep my eye on it," Strach said.

Republican legislators in control of the General Assembly and the budget-writing process criticized the move. Her husband is a lead attorney representing GOP legislators in a series of civil cases filed over the years pushing back against election law changes the General Assembly has made.

An attempt to reach Strach Wednesday wasn't immediately successful.

The job would be attached to the North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys, which works with prosecutors around the state and already provides expertise in other areas of the law, including domestic violence, homicides and financial crimes.

The budget includes $200,000 in non-recurring money for the next fiscal year and the same for the year after that. The conference is supposed to report back to the legislature in July of each year about how the program is working. The money would be used to hire an investigative consultant and provide operational support, but the budget language doesn't say how much the main position would pay.

This proposal is part of a budget with support from the General Assembly's Republican majority, and it's expected to pass the legislature in the coming days. Cooper has criticized the budget, though, largely because it does not expand Medicaid, the state and federal health insurance program, to cover hundreds of thousands of North Carolina's working poor.

That conflict may delay final approval indefinitely, leaving the election crimes proposal, and others, in limbo.