A top company official in an interview Monday disputed claims that circumstantial evidence points to Romney's involvement in the poll reportedly aimed at casting the LDS Church in a negative light with voters in early primary states.

"There is no direct connection between Western Wats and the Romney campaign," said Jeffrey Welch, chief services officer of the Orem-based company. "We have never directly worked for the Romney campaign."

The National Review Web site published a story Monday morning alleging the Romney camp has strong connections to Western Wats, which voters in Iowa and New Hampshire say called to ask survey questions positive about Sen. John McCain but negative about Romney.

The surveys asked whether voters would be less likely to back Romney if they knew he got a military deferment from Vietnam to serve an LDS mission, whether they knew Mormons consider the Book of Mormon to be superior to the Bible and whether they knew that some groups consider the LDS Church to be a cult.

Romney's campaign vehemently denied any link to the poll, as did Western Wats.

Welch added that the firm, if asked, will cooperate with a probe launched by the New Hampshire attorney general into whether election laws were violated by the calls.

"We have nothing to fear," Welch said of the New Hampshire probe.

Meanwhile, voters in South Carolina, a key early primary state with a large evangelical voter base, reported receiving similar surveys. The latest calls in South Carolina reportedly come from a Portland, Ore., firm and are not linked to Western Wats.

The McCain campaign has denied any link to the survey and was the first to ask the New Hampshire attorney general to investigate the calls' origin. That state, which holds the nation's first primary election, has strict laws about identifying who is behind a poll.

National Review, a conservative magazine, posted on its blog a report alleging that Romney was really behind the calls, purportedly hoping to smear McCain while making his campaign look like the victim.

"Evidence collected from Internet bulletin boards dedicated to tracking telemarketers and nuisance phone calls suggests that Western Wats may be tied directly to the Romney campaign," the post said, citing a string of loose connections, including political donations by some of the firm's employees.

Welch, who has given money to Romney, says the company often does not know who is the end user of the data it collects, a point he says keeps the surveys above reproach. The firm includes some Mormons, he said, though the chief executive officer and other executives are not Mormon.

"People would be surprised, not one of our board members is Mormon," Welch said.

National Review, as well as a series of bloggers, have said Romney's prints are on the critical survey, such as the fact that the founder of Western Wats and his brother are Romney backers.

"That's a connection that just isn't there," Welch said, adding the founders have had no interest in the firm since 2004.

Besides McCain's campaign, aides to presidential contenders Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani also denied any involvement. A spokeswoman for Mike Huckabee's campaign did not return two messages asking whether the campaign denies any knowledge of the surveys.

tburr@sltrib.com