CONCORD, N.H. (AP) – James Tobin, President Bush’s New England campaign chairman, has stepped down after New Hampshire Democrats accused him of involvement in the jamming of their telephone lines on Election Day 2002.

Tobin made the announcement Friday in a statement that also called the allegations “without merit.”

“These allegations date back two years and have absolutely nothing to do with the present campaign,” Tobin said. “But to avoid any harm to the campaign from their underhanded tactics, I elected earlier this week to step down from my voluntary position with the campaign.”

Before getting into GOP politics, Tobin founded The Tobin Company, a communications and political consulting company in Bangor, Maine.

Democrats and Republicans fought in court this week about whether Democrats could question GOP officials, including Tobin, as part of a lawsuit about the illegal jamming. Democrats won a ruling Wednesday that cleared the way for the questioning, but depositions scheduled for Thursday and Friday were called off after the Justice Department said it would seek to delay them.

The 2002 jamming consisted of computer-generated calls to get-out-the-vote phones run by Democrats and the nonpartisan Manchester firefighters’ union. More than 800 hang-up calls tied up phones for about 11/2 hours.

Tobin was northeast political director in 2002 for the Republican Senatorial Committee, the party operation working to elect Republicans to the Senate. Among the races affected by the phone-jamming was the U.S. Senate contest in New Hampshire between Democratic Gov. Jeanne Shaheen and Republican U.S. Rep. John E. Sununu. It was considered a cliffhanger, though Sununu ended up winning by about 20,000 votes.

In the summer of that year, Chuck McGee, the former executive director of the New Hampshire GOP, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to a conspiracy charge and admitted paying $15,600 to a Virginia telemarketing company that hired another business to make the calls. GOP consultant Allen Raymond, former president of GOP Marketplace in Alexandria, Va., also pleaded guilty.

At their plea hearings in U.S. District Court, McGee and Raymond acknowledged speaking to an unidentified official with a national political organization about the jamming. Democrats have said they believe Tobin was the official and might have put McGee and Raymond together.

Tobin said he plans to fight the allegations and is confident he will win.

“It is disappointing, indeed, to see the opposition party manipulate the court system in a blatant effort to influence the election,” he said.