AUGUSTA – Independent gubernatorial candidate Barbara Merrill is calling for a state investigation into an alleged push polling incident she said appeared to benefit the campaign of Democratic incumbent Gov. John E. Baldacci.

Push polling is a campaign surveying tactic that attempts to shift a poll respondent’s support from one candidate to another by conveying negative information about a candidate to the respondent.

Merrill said, in this case, the poll’s surveyor allegedly imparted negative information about herself and her family as well as about the campaigns of Republican candidate Chandler Woodcock and Green Independent Party candidate Patricia LaMarche.

All of the alleged push poll’s targets are running publicly funded campaigns against Baldacci who Merrill said was not mentioned during the survey.

“I’m not naive,” Merrill said Sunday. “I fully expected that this campaign would be tough. But for this kind of nonsense to start in July is ridiculous and their attempts to include my family are definitely out of bounds. Whoever is doing this, well, it just shows how desperate they are.”

Merrill is asking all of the gubernatorial candidates, including Baldacci, to join her in supporting a request for an investigation of the poll by the Maine Attorney General’s Office.

The LaMarche campaign and Chris Jackson of the Woodcock campaign said both candidates might consider supporting Merrill if it became clear that an actual push poll had taken place.

“We obviously don’t believe in those kind of tactics,” Jackson said. “But we don’t have enough information about the incident to make a decision at this time.”

Jesse Connolly, spokesman for Baldacci, said the governor’s campaign had “nothing to do” with the alleged push poll, adding he was unaware of any ongoing efforts by a sympathetic third party to conduct such a poll on the Democrat’s behalf.

“The Baldacci campaign hasn’t done any polling in July,” Connolly said. “This is simply a desperate attempt by the Merrill campaign to gain some attention in the governor’s race.”

In a statement released Saturday by Merrill, the independent candidate said she had been informed of the polling incident by Andrew Paiement of Brunswick.

The polling participant said he had become upset when the Parker Group of Birmingham, Ala., called him last Sunday and decided to include questions involving the candidate’s husband, Phil Merrill, a former high-profile Maine Democrat who is now an independent.

“I was offended for you when they called you unqualified, a disgruntled former Baldacci supporter, and worst of all, they dragged your husband into almost all questions regarding you,” Paiement said in an e-mail to Merrill. “Also [the surveyor said] Woodcock would make abortion illegal with no exceptions and LaMarche wanted single payer health care and that was about it for her.”

In her response to Paiement, who said he had alerted the AG’s office about the incident, Merrill said it was clear “when all of the positive questions relate to the governor and all of the other questions posit negative thoughts regarding Woodcock, LaMarche and me, it is called a push poll, which is highly unethical and can only lead to smear campaigning.”

“I am hopeful that bringing this type of campaign technique into the open will help stop this campaign tactic,” she said. “I particularly appreciate your sensitivity to his attacks on my family and the other candidates.”