In 1988, he was elected to the North Carolina Senate; that same year, he had served as chair of the Guilford County chapter of the NAACP.

Ballance ran for and was elected to, the United States House of Representatives from North Carolina's 1st congressional district in 2002.

On November 9, 2004, a plea agreement was reached under which Frank Ballance pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and money laundering.

He began serving his sentence at the medium-security federal prison in Butner, North Carolina, on December 30, 2005.

[4] His son, Garey Ballance, a state district judge in Guilford County, North Carolina, was also charged.