A federal judge in Concord, N.H., Thursday acquitted former GOP operative James Tobin, 47, of Bangor of charges that he conspired to jam the 2002 get-out-the-vote phone banks run by New Hampshire Democrats and a firefighters union.

U.S. District Judge Steven McAuliffe issued his order the same week that jury selection on Tobin’s retrial had been scheduled to begin.

“[It] is plain that the evidence presented was insufficient to support a jury finding of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt,” McAuliffe wrote in his conclusion.

The judge ruled that to find Tobin guilty, a jury would have had to conclude that his intent in having the repeated hang-up phone calls made was “to harass or invoke adverse reactions in the called parties.”

“But while deliberate disruption, vote suppression, and electoral success for his party were his goals,” McAuliffe wrote, “there was no evidence that Tobin specifically intended to provoke adverse emotional reactions in the people at the telephone numbers called.”

Phone messages left for Tobin, attorneys in the case and representatives of the Democratic and Republican parties in New Hampshire were not immediately returned Thursday night.

Tobin has said through local representatives in the past that he would not comment on the case until it has been closed and all possibilities of appeals have been exhausted.

Government attorneys have 30 days to decide whether to appeal McAuliffe’s decision to acquit on Thursday.

Tobin, a Maine native and longtime Republican strategist, was found guilty in December 2005 of conspiring to make more than 800 repeated hang-up phone calls and of aiding and abetting the making of those calls.

After an eight-day jury trial, Tobin was acquitted of the more serious charge of conspiring to deprive New Hampshire residents of their right to vote.

The calls tied up get-out-the-vote and ride-to-the-polls phone lines at Democratic Party offices and a Manchester firefighters union office on Election Day 2002.

The election featured a U.S. Senate race won by Republican John Sununu over Democrat Jeanne Shaheen – an election that will be replayed this year.

He was sentenced the next year to serve 10 months in federal prison and ordered to pay a $10,000 fine, but has remained free on bail pending the outcome of the appeal of his conviction.

Last year, the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston overturned that conviction. The three-judge panel unanimously found that McAuliffe incorrectly instructed the jury about the harassment statute under which Tobin and three other men were charged.

The appeals court held that the term harass “require[s] an intent to provoke adverse reaction in the called party … a bad motive of some other kind standing alone is not enough.” The 1st Circuit sent back to McAuliffe the question of whether enough evidence was presented at the earlier trial to retry Tobin and possibly convince a new jury that Tobin had acted with intent to harass.

While McAuliffe ruled against a new trial Thursday, he previously had scheduled jury selection to begin this week in case his ruling had gone the other way.

McAuliffe on Thursday found that the evidence was insufficient for a conviction. He also cited the legislative history of the statute used to prosecute Tobin.

The statute was passed during the Vietnam War to keep protesters from calling the parents and families of soldiers and expressing their anti-war views, according to court documents.

“The legislative history is not decidedly favorable [to either side’s arguments] and is hardly conclusive with respect to Congressional intent, but it does suggest that the basic evil the statute seeks to prevent is the use of repeated phone calls to upset the person called,” the judge wrote. “It also suggests that the statute was not directly aimed at preventing the disruption of communications or phone jamming.”

Prosecutors conceded at Tobin’s trial that to harass the callers and cause emotional distress were not his intent.

Bangor attorney Tim Woodcock, who assisted in Tobin’s defense in its early stages nearly three years ago, praised McAuliffe’s decision.

“This decision confirms a central and cardinal tenet of American law – that adherence to congressional intent in framing a criminal statute is required of every court,” he said. “A court’s adherence to congressional intent protects all Americans.”

At the time of the phone jamming, Tobin was a regional official with the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, overseeing Senate campaigns in several states. He went on to serve as President Bush’s New England re-election campaign chairman in 2004, but resigned after the allegations surfaced.

The jamming has led to four criminal prosecutions and a civil lawsuit that was settled with Republicans paying the Democrats $135,000. The Democrats had sought $4.1 million.

It was unclear Thursday how Tobin’s acquittal would affect the convictions of the two co-conspirators who testified against him and have completed prison terms.

Charles “Chuck” McGee, 37, of Manchester, N.H., the former executive director of the New Hampshire Republican Party, served seven months in federal prison. Allen Raymond, 40, of Maryland originally was sentenced to five months in prison. His sentence was reduced to three months after Tobin’s conviction. Raymond’s book “How to Rig an Election,” about his career in politics, was published last month.

Shaun Hansen, 35, of Spokane, Wash., pleaded guilty last year to the charges but was allowed to withdraw that plea after the appellate court ruled in Tobin’s favor. Hansen, whose telemarketing firm made the repeated hang-up calls, was scheduled to go on trial for his part in the conspiracy in March.

Based on McAuliffe’s order issued Thursday, charges against Hansen are likely to be dismissed.