AP: Maine GOP official convicted of violating voters' rights

So it's true, Bush's campaign people will do anything to keep Democrats from voting...at least in this case: "A former top Republican Party official was convicted on telephone harassment charges Thursday for his part in a plot to jam the Democrats' phones on Election Day 2002.

The federal jury acquitted James Tobin of the most serious charge against him, of conspiring to violate voters' rights.

Tobin, 45, of Bangor, Maine, was President Bush's New England campaign chairman last year. He could get up seven years in prison and $500,000 in fines when he is sentenced in March.

For nearly two hours on Election Day 2002, hundreds of hang-up calls overwhelmed Democratic get-out-the-vote phone banks in New Hampshire and a ride-to-the-polls line run by Manchester's firefighters union.

Tobin, who at the time was New England chairman of Bush's re-election campaign and a top regional official of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, was accused of orchestrating the phone-jamming.

In August, the Republican National Committee acknowledged it had spent more than $722,000 to provide Tobin with lawyers from a high-powered Washington law firm. Party officials who said they ordinarily would not discuss such matters said they underwrote Tobin's defense because he was a longtime supporter and assured them he had committed no crimes."