Washington - A leading Republican website was hacked just hours before polls opened yesterday in what Republicans said was an effort to discredit their candidate, Governor George W. Bush.
Late on Monday the Republican National Committee's website (http://www.RNC.org) was hacked and replaced with a lengthy anti-Bush tirade, according to RNC spokesman Tom Yu, who added that the unknown hacker also left a link to Al Gore's campaign website.
"It's obviously a dirty trick late in the campaign by the Democrats," Mr Yu said.
"We're disappointed at the large amount of dirty tricks being played this late in the campaign by the Democrats and we hope that Al Gore and the Democratic Party will join us in denouncing this kind of dirty trick," he added.
Mr Yu declined to detail the anti-Bush message that was posted on the RNC internet site, saying he did not want to give the words added credibility by repeating them.
The Democratic National Committee's website (http://www.DNC.org) was also infiltrated late on Monday. The DNC said that its website suffered repeated attacks causing it to shut down. `It is unclear where these attacks came from," it said.