U.S. Rep. Leonard Lance (R-7th Dist.) is extremely popular this week. The five-term congressman has filled a more than 900-seat auditorium and an overflow room at Raritan Valley Community College for a town hall meeting on Feb. 22.

A second meeting was added for Feb. 25, and constituents who tried to register for that meeting said Friday they were told that session was also filled. Lance's spokesman John Byers, however, said the Feb. 25 event had open seats as of Friday afternoon.

Many of those who said they were shut out of the sessions questioned if the congressman was trying to pack the meetings with loyal Republicans. Many others said Lance may just not have realized the level of interest and mismanaged the organization process.

"I'm disgusted, and I'm a little furious, too," Michael Houston, of Clinton, said. "We don't want to blame him (Lance) for misleading people when it may be a matter of them not realizing how many people were going to want to go."

In a statement, Byers denied that any aspect of the sign-up system for the town hall meetings was politically motivated.

"That is a complete falsehood," Byers said. "Any person who has attended any of Congressman Lance's 40 in-person town halls or his 45 telephone town halls knows he takes questions from Democrats, Republicans and Independents alike."

How to reach U.S. Rep. Leonard Lance

Washington DC Office: (202) 225-5361

Flemington District Office: (908) 788-6900

Westfield District Office: (908) 518-7733

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CongressmanLance/

Twitter: @RepLanceNJ7

The tension comes amidst a nationwide string of heated town hall meetings by Republican Congress members facing a riled up political left, as well as their own constituencies in moderate districts.

Lance was considered a moderate when he was elected in 2008 to a district that President Barack Obama won. His district has changed to encompass more conservative areas, and Lance has become more conservative as well, several constituents said.

Progressive groups, Democrats and some moderate Republicans have not welcomed the change. Nearly continuous protests have occurred at Lance's office since January.

Dozens of constituents said they planned to question Lance on his voting record and ask him about his stance on repealing the Affordable Care Act, funding for Planned Parenthood, abortion rights and other issues before Congress resumed.

Those eager to question the congressman said they responded to an RSVP on his Facebook page last week. But on Wednesday and Thursday, they got emails asking them to re-register for the Feb. 22 event. When they tried to register, they said they were told the session was full.

Although a second session was added for Feb. 25, several people said they couldn't change their session because of child care or other conflicts.

More than 2,000 people have signed up for both events, according to Byers.

"Ninety-nine percent signed up and got their tickets without a hitch," he said in a statement. "Those with hitches are getting assistance."

Gabriel Olochwoszcz, of Hillsborough, said he first signed up for the town hall on Feb. 10. He saw friends posting on social media Wednesday that they had gotten a re-registration email, sent through the ticketing platform Eventbrite.

Olochwoszcz said his email came Thursday at 4:30 a.m., and when he tried to sign up around 9 a.m., he also got messages that both live events were full. He said one of Lance's staffers told him EventBrite was supposed to send out the re-registration emails in roughly the order in which people originally registered, but he said he wasn't sure whether that had happened.

"My personal read on the situation is that they're just way in over their heads," said Olochwoszcz, who usually votes for Republicans but chose Lance's opponent, Peter Jacob, last November. "I know a lot of people are perceiving it as malice, and I don't think it is. I think they're just that overwhelmed."

Byers declined to comment on the order in which Eventbrite sent out the invitations.

He said in a statement that Lance had wanted a second town hall added to accommodate as many people as possible and that everyone who RSVP'd to the original event got an email asking them to choose either the auditorium or the overflow room for one of the two dates.

"The response was strong, and we want to make sure constituents get in and that constituents get to ask questions," Byers said. "The ticket system will make sure that as many as possible are accommodated through the two town halls and that seats in the theater are not taken by out-of-staters."

Michelle Regan, of Tewksbury, said she and her husband signed up for the Feb. 22 town hall weeks ago but didn't get an email asking them to re-register for one of the two events. She said when she called Lance's Washington, D.C., office, a staffer told her neither she nor her husband was in their database and so couldn't register for either town hall.

"It's probably not hard to identify me as someone who's not sympathetic with the way Leonard Lance tends to vote," Regan, a registered Democrat who said she emails Lance's office almost weekly to express concern about his voting record, said Thursday. "It could either be a big technical glitch because the system got flooded, or it could be something more systematic or intentional, which, to me, would mean obstruction of the constituents."

Regan said Friday that she and her husband received Eventbrite emails letting them sign up for the event after they contacted Lance's office, and she believed their exclusion from the invitation had been an honest error.

Tewksbury resident Albert Macchi, too, said the Feb. 22 meeting was full when he tried to re-register for it Thursday. He eventually signed up for the Feb. 25 event.

Macchi said he wondered if Lance's office might have implemented the re-registration system to split registered Democrats and Republicans evenly between the two events.

Houston, who ultimately signed up for the Feb. 22 live-stream event, said he expected constituents opposed to Lance's views to "show up in numbers" to the congressman's town halls.

"I think there will be people rallying even outside the venue if they couldn't get into either one," Houston said. "We want to show him (Lance) it's not just a couple of disgruntled Democrats. It's a lot of people who are upset."

Marisa Iati may be reached at miati@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @Marisa_Iati or on Facebook here. Find NJ.com on Facebook.