2002 New Hampshire Senate Election Phone Jamming Election
In 2002 states election for the US Senate seat, reports of election tampering emerged. The seat was being vacated by Robert C. Smith. The Republican Party NHGOP was alleged to have jammed phone bank used by the Democratic Party. The scandal became famously known as the 2002 New Hampshire Senate Election Phone Jamming Scandal.
NHGOP hired a Northern Virginia based telemarketing firm, GOP Marketplace, so as to jam another phone bank in order to render efforts of the Democratic Party. At the end of the election, the republican candidate, John E Sununu won by a narrow margin. The case got disclosed when a civil suit was filed against the Republican Party by the Democratic Party
On the day of the election, the police in Concord, the state capital of New Hampshire, were notified by the democratic workers about the phone jams. In order to interfere with their efforts to reach voters and provide them rides to the polls, the telephone lines were jammed by repeating phone calls which self terminated after 5 seconds. The incident went on for an hour and a half at the peak hours of the day making it almost impossible for the democratic workers to make any outgoing calls.Verizon was finally able to stop most of the calls. However, the incident and those responsible for it clearly violated the State `telephone harassment` law.
As of 2007, four men have been convicted to federal crimes and sentenced to prison. However one conviction was reversed by an appeal in the court. The appeal however can be challenged by the prosecutors.
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