CONCORD, N.H. (AP) – The former director of the state Republican Party pleaded guilty Wednesday to plotting to jam Democratic phone banks on Election Day 2002.

Chuck McGee was accused of arranging to have hundreds of hang-up calls made to phone lines installed to help voters get rides to the polls on Nov. 5, 2002. Among the contests decided that day was the close U.S. Senate race in which Republican Rep. John Sununu beat outgoing Democratic Gov. Jeanne Shaheen.

McGee, 34, pleaded guilty to conspiring to make anonymous calls with the intent to “annoy or harass” the recipients, a felony that carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. He was released on personal recognizance bail and will be sentenced Oct. 29.

McGee, who would temporarily lose his right to vote if he gets sentenced to prison, did not speak at the U.S. District Court hearing other than to give brief answers to the judge’s questions. He declined to comment as he left the courtroom.

“He came in today and acknowledged his responsibility for this unfortunate and misguided event,” said McGee’s lawyer, Patrick Donovan. “He understands it was criminal and not Christian.”

McGee admitted paying $15,600 to a Virginia telemarketing firm that hired another vendor to call Democratic Party offices in Manchester, Nashua, Rochester and Claremont. Phone lines at the Manchester firefighters’ union also were affected.

The computer-generated calls – more than 800 total – lasted for about an hour and a half before then-Republican State Committee Chairman John Dowd ordered them halted, prosecutor Todd Hinnen has said.

In hatching the plan to give Republicans an edge, Hinnen said McGee called upon his military experience, reasoning that “one of the best ways to disrupt your opponents is to disrupt their ability to communicate.”

He also said a “visiting official from a national political organization” was aware of the plan and recommended the Virginia company. He declined to name that person.

Though McGee’s cooperation with prosecutors could help him win a lighter sentence, Hinnen said he also may argue for an enhanced sentence because the phone-jamming substantially disrupted a government function.

McGee resigned in early 2003 after Manchester police said they had alerted federal prosecutors to the phone-jamming operation. At the time, he denied any wrongdoing, and current GOP chairwoman Jayne Millerick said the money went to telemarketing services to encourage people to vote Republican, not to jam the lines.

Allen Raymond, the former president of GOP Marketplace in Alexandria, Va., pleaded guilty June 30 to hiring another firm, Milo Enterprises of Idaho, to make the calls.

A small group of Democrats protested outside the courthouse Wednesday, demanding that others involved in the plan be held accountable. Several held signs reading “Chuck McGee and the GOP jammed my right to vote.”

AP-ES-07-28-04 1702EDT

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