For the second straight day yesterday, Democratic field offices received dozens of phone calls and e-mails from frustrated voters upset about repeated automated phone calls they thought were coming from Democratic candidate Paul Hodes - though the calls were paid for by a Republican group instead.

The National Republican Congressional Committee spent nearly $20,000 on the calls last week. Depending on the rate, that could mean more than 300,000 automated phone calls into the Second Congressional District.

Incumbent Republican Congressman Charlie Bass denounced the calls yesterday and said he tried to get the NRCC to put a stop to them. But a spokesman for the NRCC said the automated phone calls would continue indefinitely.

"The calls will continue as planned," said Alex Burgos, a spokesman for the NRCC, the national group charged with electing Republicans to the House. "They are done independently of Charlie Bass's campaign. He has nothing to do with them."

During a campaign stop yesterday, Bass said he opposed the calls. "Believe you me, I do not like all of this stuff," he said. Bass added that he had contacted the NRCC to tell them he doesn't want the calls made.

Bass's input is irrelevant, Burgos said. "We make these expenditures individually of any campaign, and to heed their calls to do them or discontinue them would be coordination, which would violate the (federal) laws," he said.

Meanwhile, Democrats have challenged that the calls violate state law, since some have gone to voters who listed their numbers with the federal Do Not Call Registry. State law makes it illegal for anyone to make prerecorded political phone calls to people on the federal registry.

A spokeswoman for the Democratic Party said yesterday that Bass could do more to stop the calls. "How he responds to these calls has everything to do with his campaign," said Kathleen Strand, a spokeswoman for the party. "If he can't stand up to his party on this, he can't stand up to his party on anything. His constituents are being harassed with misleading, negative phone calls."

Bass said the Democrats seem to "have a double standard," because the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has pumped more than $1 million into the race recently for TV ads and other messages to benefit Hodes. He said the issue of the automated calls should be resolved with future finance-reform legislation to shut out independent expenditures.

Some of the automated calls begin with messages that suggest they might be from the Hodes campaign: "Hello, I'm calling with information about Paul Hodes." The calls then proceed to give negative information about Hodes on various issues - such as taxes and the prescription drug program known as Medicare - before disclosing that they were paid for by the NRCC. But many people hang up after the first line, believing they've been called by the Hodes camp, said Reid Cherlin, a spokesman for Hodes.

A letter-writer to the Monitor said she had been "bombarded by recorded election messages from Paul Hodes." Marilyn Jewell of Concord wrote that she would be sure to vote for Bass, in part because "he doesn't pester me to death."

Selective automated calls have been made on Hodes's behalf, Cherlin said. Two went out last week from Democrats, each to 16,000 recipients who aren't on the Do Not Call list. Monday, the campaign coordinated a call with the DCCC that included a message from Hodes recruiting volunteers. On Wednesday, the Democratic Party coordinated a call with the campaign that featured Gov. John Lynch encouraging people to vote for Hodes.

Unlike the Republican calls, those Democratic calls went out once and did not ring repeatedly or reach people on the Do Not Call list, Cherlin said. No other automated calls are planned on behalf of Hodes, he said.

Live calls for Hodes have gone out as well, Cherlin said. "That's just part of getting out the vote. That's real people who don't call you at 7 in the morning or at midnight, and they don't call you five days in a row with misleading information," Cherlin said.

Daily reports filed with the Federal Election Commission show that the NRCC made four payments totaling $19,321.98 last week for anti-Hodes phone banks. The money went to Conquest Communications Group, a Virginia-based automated-calling firm, on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

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