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Is there a point where the Get Out the Vote (GOTV) drive becomes counter-productive? Eight phone calls and two people knocking on my door on Saturday, reminding me to vote tomorrow; lots of messages waiting when I got home from an out-of-town trip yesterday; at least seven calls so far today. Hey, I’m eager to vote this year, but I’m so annoyed by the calls I’m thinking of disconnecting my phone for a couple days.

In Philadelphia, voters are being inundated with annoying calls that appear to be from Democrat Lois Murphy. The calls are actually from the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), and they’re calculated to make voters slam down the phone before they hear the required attribution at the end of the long call. The same tactic is being used across the country. From Talking Points Memo:

[S]he got the call again and again and 18 more times, making for a total of about 21 calls since October 24…

But the calls aren’t paid for by [Democratic candidates] or even the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, they are paid for by the National Republican Congressional Committee.

The GOP response to Democratic efforts to get voters to the polls is called Voter Suppression. It takes many forms. From the Washington Post:

A recently distributed guide for Republican poll watchers in Maryland spells out how to aggressively challenge the credentials of voters and urges these volunteers to tell election judges they could face jail time if a challenge is ignored.

Intimidation doesn’t work on everyone, but in a close election it doesn’t have to. If even a small fraction of improperly challenged voters are frightened or discouraged from voting, that may be enough to keep power in the hands of the thugs and their cronies.

In Houston, Texas, Republicans demanded the city stop providing flu shots at polling places. They were concerned that the availability of the shots would bring Democratic voters to the polls.

Across the nation, Republicans have imposed new voter ID rules calculated less to ensure the integrity of the vote than to frustrate and discourage voters who might want the GOP out. The rules have been challenged in some states as a form of “poll tax.” From the Boston Globe:

These days, every basic protection seems up for grabs. When the national conversation turns to the merits of torture and the need to track private telephone calls, chipping away at the bedrock of democratic government — one man, one vote — can’t be far behind.

At least nine states are waging battles over voter ID laws. Last month, a Georgia judge ruled that a law passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature was unconstitutional because it put up too many hurdles for citizens otherwise qualified to vote. A judge in Missouri came to a similar conclusion, offering a pointed reminder that, unlike driver’s licenses, voter ballots should never involve bureaucratic hassle. “The photo ID burden on the voter may seem minor … to the mainstream of our society for whom automobiles, driver’s licenses, and even passports are a natural part of everyday life,” the judge wrote. “However, for the elderly, the poor, the undereducated or otherwise disadvantaged, the burden can be great, if not insurmountable.”

That, of course, is the idea.

It can cost anywhere from $5 to $23 to get a birth certificate; a passport costs between $87 and $97. To a lot of people, $97 might be the cost of a night out on the town. But any price tag on voting amounts to a poll tax, which is still illegal in this country.

Illegality doesn’t stop these Republicans. It doesn’t even slow them down.

An angry friend living in a small town says all the poll workers there know him. If they make him show ID to vote, he says he’ll just walk out.

Exactly according to The Plan. They win, you lose.

Do you think Karl Rove worries about your icy fury or your white-hot rage? The thing that worries Karl is your vote. Why do you suppose they’ve gone to such lengths to keep you from casting it?

Tomorrow is Election Day. I’m taking my icy fury; I’m taking my white-hot rage. I’m getting into that voting booth, by God, and I’m doing my part to wipe the smirk off Rove’s and Bush’s faces.

Let’s take this country back.