New Hampshire residents may be among the most pollster-besieged in the nation, quadrennially fielding call after call during the dinner hour from those seeking to gauge electoral leanings.
In an effort to shield voters, the state in 1998 banned certain forms of push-polling, a practice that seeks to plant negative information about a candidate.
Now, after a series of high-profile lawsuits by the state’s attorney general against candidates and some of the nation’s leading polling firms - most recently, one alleging that US Representative Charles Bass’s campaign improperly used push polleds in 2010 - pollsters are crying foul, saying the law is too broad and overly punitive.
Rather than punishing just true push-polling, they say, the law also ensnares legitimate questioning, including questions about how negative information about a candidate affects voters’ thinking.
Pollsters say they are so spooked by the recent prosecutions, they are now shy of polling at all in New Hampshire - a move they say could have repercussions for the state’s first-in-the-nation primary status, since candidates could shy away from campaigning there if they can’t get the information from pollsters.
“Our concern is that tons of researchers are avoiding doing research calls in New Hampshire because they don’t want the legal liabilities,’’ said Howard Fienberg, director of government affairs for the Marketing Research Association, a trade group. “A lot of research has not been done as a result.’’
The attorney general’s office did not return calls seeking comment.
A push-poll is defined as a phone call in which the caller supplies information to a voter about a candidate’s character or record and conducts the call in such a way that the voter thinks he is participating in a poll.
The law doesn’t ban push-polling. Rather, it mandates that if a push-poll is conducted, the caller must identify the sponsor. The law was the brainchild of a Republican lawmaker who, during the 1996 presidential primary, grew frustrated with push-polls that expressed negative information about the candidate he supported, Lamar Alexander.
It was signed into law by Governor Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat.
The law has ensnared pollsters working on both sides of the aisle. In January, OnMessage, a Washington-area firm accused of push-polling on behalf of the campaign of US Representative Frank Guinta, a Republican, settled with the attorney general’s office for $15,000. In October 2010, Idaho-based Mountain West Research Center paid $20,000 to settle a case that alleged push-polling for New Hampshire US Senate candidate Paul Hodes, a Democrat.
In the state’s most recent enforcement, Attorney General Michael Delaney alleged that the Bass Victory Committee hired the Tarrance Group to place 400 push-poll calls in fall 2010 against Ann McLane Kuster, Bass’s Democratic opponent for the US House in New Hampshire’s Second District.
The lawsuit does not detail the script of the calls. It alleges that Bass’s campaign manager asked the Tarrance Group to omit the campaign’s name from the attribution during the calls and to substitute it with the “National Republican Congressional Committee.’’
“I’d rather have any issues about ‘push-polling’ be blamed on them . . . rather than us - especially with the date-rape drug question in there,’’ the campaign manager wrote in an e-mail, according to the lawsuit.
The “date-rape drug question’’ may have referred to Kuster’s lobbying work for the maker of Rohypnol, also known as the date-rape drug. The Bass campaign alleged that Kuster sought to protect Rohypnol’s status before a legislative committee; her campaign said she supported tougher criminal penalties for improper use of the drug.
The Tarrance Group complied with the request, amending its script to read, “The Tarrance Group wishes to thank you for participating in this survey - which was commissioned and paid for by the National Republican Congressional Committee . . . 202-479-7050. Good night,’’ according to the lawsuit.
The Bass campaign could be fined as much as $400,000 - $1,000 for each call placed.
The campaign said in a prepared statement that it “strongly denies’’ the allegations and will “vigorously defend the suit.’’
Fienberg and others say the Bass lawsuit is the latest example of the overreach of the law. They said the structure of the poll itself defies that of a push-poll: 400 voters are too few for such a poll to be effective.
The pollsters have been pressuring the New Hampshire legislature to amend the law and narrow the definition of push-polling.
In an interview, state Representative David Bates, chairman of the election law committee, said he is leaning toward seeking a change in the legislation.
“The problem seems to be in the definition of a push-poll. The attorney general is counting as push-polls legitimate statistical polling efforts,’’ said Bates, a Republican. “That’s what needs to be clarified - the difference between a push-poll and what these legitimate companies are doing, which is commonplace.’’
But he added he has not been privy to the text of the alleged push-polls and hopes to see them before he makes any conclusions.
Pamela Walsh, senior adviser to the state Democratic Party, said: “I think the law is confusing and could be clarified. The difference between a push-poll and a legitimate poll is not very clear in the law.’’ But she said the legislature must move cautiously.
“Is the solution worse than the current problem?’’ she said.
Sarah Schweitzer can be reached at sschweitzer@globe.com.
Correction: Because of a reporting error, an earlier version of this story misspelled the last name of Howard Fienberg, the director of government affairs for the Marketing Research Association.