John E. Sununu
When an election is as contentious as the 2002 New Hampshire Senate race between Republican incumbent John E. Sununu and outgoing governor Jeanne Shaheen, both candidates will likely do everything they can to win votes up until the final moment. But in Shaheen’s case, those crucial 11th-hour calls were effectively blocked by a phone-jamming campaign thought up by the GOP. For two crucial hours on voting day, an Idaho telecommunications firm, paid by the Republican party, tied up Democratic phone lines, halting their ability to get people to the polls. Phone-jamming, which is illegal but still sometimes utilized in political campaigns, resulted in the conviction of three Republican strategists — Charles McGee, former executive director of the New Hampshire Republican Party, Allen Raymond, a GOP consultant, and James Tobin, former regional political director of the Republican National Committee — for violating federal communications law. Sununu won the election.