The state attorney general is investigating phone calls to New Hampshire voters that pretend to be opinion polls but then undercut presidential contender Mitt Romney and his Mormon faith - and make favorable statements about Republican rival John McCain.

McCain says they're not his doing and he wants them stopped. Romney says it's a religious attack and "un-American."

McCain said of the phone calling, "It is disgraceful, it is outrageous, and it is a violation, we believe, of New Hampshire law." His campaign asked the attorney general to investigate, and McCain asked other candidates to join in the request.

One McCain adviser, Chuck Douglas, said, "We believe it is being done by one of the other campaigns. We don't know which one."

Western Wats, a Utah-based company, placed the calls that initially sound like a poll but then pose questions that cast Romney in a harsh light, according to people who received the calls. In politics, this type of phone surveying is called "push polling" - contacting potential voters and asking questions intended to plant a message, usually negative, rather than gauging attitudes.

A spokesman for the company would not comment on whether it made the calls. However, its client services director, Robert Maccabee said, "Western Wats has never, currently does not, nor will it ever engage in push polling."

The 20-minute calls started on Sunday in New Hampshire and Iowa. At least seven people in the two early voting states received the calls, some as recently as Thursday.

Deputy Attorney General Bud Fitch said New Hampshire has never prosecuted a case involving such calls but was moving forward. He cautioned against expecting an immediate resolution.

"Generally, these investigations can take at least several days and sometimes several weeks," Fitch said.

Among the questions the caller asked was whether the person receiving the call knew Romney was a Mormon, that he received military deferments when he served as a Mormon missionary in France, that his five sons did not serve in the military, that Romney's faith did not accept blacks as bishops into the 1970s and that Mormons believe the Book of Mormon is superior to the Bible.

"It started out like all the other calls. . . . Then all of the sudden it got very unsettling and very negative," said Anne Baker, an independent voter who was called in Hollis.

In Iowa, Romney supporter and state representative Ralph Watts got a call Wednesday.

"I was offended by the line of questioning," Watts said. "I don't think it has any place in politics."

Romney, campaigning in Las Vegas, said yesterday, "The attempts to attack me on the basis of my faith are un-American."

The former Massachusetts governor's Mormon faith has been an issue in his presidential bid, especially with conservative evangelicals who are central to his strategy to cast himself as the candidate for the GOP's family values voters.

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