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Elections officials take his work more seriously.

"Bob Hall is in our offices sometimes as much as our staff," said Kim Strach, the election board's deputy director for campaign finance. "We are grateful for the work he does."

Strach led the investigation of Hall's complaint and, with other top elections officials, at times conferred with Hall in the midst of the hearings, whispering about testimony or looking into laws.

The latest controversy over optometrists popped up late last year, as Strach followed the money trail on video poker.

Elections officials uncovered a practice, detailed in testimony last week, in which optometrists broke up substantial pledges to their political action committee into small, incomplete checks that were later controlled by others.

Strach called the actions illegal, and the board voted to ask prosecutors to examine the cases of two men involved -- former state Rep. Michael Decker and the leader of the optometrists' political committee.

Testimony is expected later this month or early in March on video poker allegations, and officials said the case surrounding Black's actions remains open.

Hall says he wants the abuses he uncovers to change the system so there will be no need for more hearings.

Democracy North Carolina is an eight-person operation whose major financial backers include the Z. Smith Reynolds and Carnegie Corporation foundations.

Changing the system

Ultimately, the group wants campaigns to be publicly financed in the state. Its goal is to force candidates to collect small checks from individual voters, checks that then would qualify the candidate for ample public funds to run for office.

Hall and his associates describe such a system as "voter-owned" elections. The aim is to obliterate campaigns financed by special interests.

But Hall, who is often seen in a flannel shirt with glasses dangling from his neck, understands that smaller steps are more likely.

Out of the latest abuses, he would like to see changes that make the worst offenses felonies instead of the misdemeanors they are now.

He will also push for full public disclosure of campaign donations, not just donations of more than $100. During his testimony, Black indicated that might be necessary or prudent.

Hall is not an unlikely figure in the midst of reform efforts.

One of four siblings raised in Florida by his mother, a church secretary, he went to college at a small Presbyterian school in Memphis, Tenn. He majored in math and religion.

He was active in integration efforts in the early 1960s, then ended up with the Institute for Southern Studies in Atlanta. He started its magazine of culture and politics, the Journal of Southern Exposure, and eventually branched off into examining politics and money while living in the Triangle.

He has played a role in stirring up other political scandals of recent years -- helping to outline the role of special-interest money in road-building, hog farming and U.S. Senate races.

He said he uses fifth-grade math and persistence to add up the numbers.

"It's research for a good cause and, of course, there's certainly a moral thrust to what we do," he said. "We all want to leave something behind."

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