HARRISBURG - The computer programs had catchy names: "Election Day Complete," "Candidate Connect," and "The Edge."

The software, brainchild of State Rep. John M. Perzel and his aides, was designed to "slice and dice" voter data and help Republicans win.

It would have been perfectly legal, high-tech politicking, except that taxpayers were footing the $10 million bill, a grand jury found.

Perzel, the former House speaker, was charged yesterday with 82 counts of theft, conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and conflict of interest. The grand jury said he and others had misused public money for campaign purposes and then tried to cover it up.

Perzel, who has represented Northeast Philadelphia for 30 of his 59 years, thus became the most prominent political figure charged to date in the long-running investigation unofficially known as Bonusgate.

Nine other people with ties to the House Republican caucus were charged yesterday. They included Perzel's former chief of staff, Brian Preski; four other former Perzel aides; and former Rep. Brett Feese of Lycoming County, who once headed the House Appropriations Committee.

"Perzel was the architect behind a sophisticated criminal strategy that spent nearly $10 million of taxpayer money purely for campaign work," said Attorney General Tom Corbett, a Republican whose critics had, before yesterday, accused him of protecting members of his own party.

The allegations, described in a 188-page grand-jury presentment, came 16 months after Corbett brought charges against a dozen House Democratic insiders.

In a statement released as the attorney general was still announcing the charges, Perzel said he was innocent and accused Corbett, a Republican candidate for governor next year, of "political opportunism."

"I have faithfully served the people of my district, my city, and my state for more than 30 years, and I have never used public funds for my personal or political gain," Perzel said in his statement.

"This investigation has lasted for nearly three years, and it's only now, on the eve of his gubernatorial campaign and in response to claims that he was unfairly pursuing only Democrats, that Attorney General Corbett has decided to bring charges against 10 Republicans, including me."

William Winning, Preski's attorney, called his client "a dedicated public servant who . . . has done nothing wrong or illegal." He predicted that Preski, a Philadelphia lawyer, would be "fully exonerated."

Asked to respond to Perzel's statement, Corbett said he had no comment.

"I just laid out what we've been doing for two years," he said at an afternoon news conference.

Corbett said Perzel's interest in gaining a high-tech advantage in elections grew out of his near-defeat in 2000, when a little-known candidate came within 100 votes of knocking him from office.

It was then, the attorney general said, that Perzel vowed never to face another close race again, and instilled that mind-set in his staff.

Perzel turned to computer programmers to help him win elections, ordering up as many as a dozen separate software programs between 2000 and 2007. Some analyzed mountains of data to help direct campaign e-mails to likely supporters. Others helped target fund-raising pitches.

All were built to give Perzel and fellow Republicans an advantage at the polls. Corbett said most of the money had gone to two software developers: GCR & Associates Inc. of New Orleans and Aristotle Inc. of Washington.

Executives and programmers at the two companies testified before the grand jury with a grant of immunity from prosecutors.

At one point, according to the charges, Perzel and his former chief of staff, Preski, hatched an idea called "ID Verification System" after seeing thousands of spectators at a NASCAR event in Harrisburg.