Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election

2002
7.8| 0h50m| en| More Info
Released: 17 September 2002 Released
Producted By:
Country:
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election is the riveting story about the battle for the presidency in Florida and the undermining of democracy in America. Filmmakers Richard Ray Perez and Joan Sekler examine modern America’s most controversial political contest: the 2000 election of George W. Bush. What emerges is a disturbing picture of an election marred by suspicious irregularities, electoral injustices, and sinister voter purges in a state governed by the winning candidate’s brother. This 2004 Campaign Edition features new commentary by Danny Glover and a new segment on the dangers of electronic voting machines.

... View More
Stream Online

Stream with Prime Video

Director

Producted By

AD
AD

Watch Free for 30 Days

Stream on any device, 30-day free trial Watch Now

Trailers & Images

Reviews

Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much
Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.
AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.
InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.
Villemar While this film brings to light a lot of things that America citizens had not been previously aware of, what kills it for me is the Naderite impression given that both sides were equally culpable in this farce of an election.Specifically the Republican myth that "Gore cherry-picked only the counties where he thought he could get more votes," which is sadly propagated in this film. This gets on my nerves, but sadly it has stood as conventional wisdom, still parroted today from those who should know better, including the makers of this film.Why did the Gore campaign pick Volusia, Broward, Dade, and Palm Beach Counties for hand recounts so soon after the election? Easy - those (with the exception of Broward) were the counties with the highest reports of irregularities right from the get go. Volusia had some crazy computer malfunction that caused the vote totals to swing wildly election night. Palm Beach County had the whole butterfly ballot thing. And Dade County had a very high number of early reports of irregularities.In hindsight the only thing I would have done differently if I was in the Gore Campaign would be to have swapped Broward County with Duval County, Duval County being the fourth highest county with early irregularity reports.It isn't clear if Gore himself even made the decision to make the early hand recount request to the four counties. In the excellent book "Too Close To Call" by Jeffrey Toobin, it is shown that Warren Christopher and a couple others from the Gore campaign were the ones who make the quick decision to request hand recounts from those four counties. The Gore campaign was put on the spot. Florida law states that hand recounts must be individually requested from each county. It is understandable that those in the Gore campaign were uncomfortable with individually asking 64 separate counties for hand recounts, especially since the requests have to come within 24 hours after the election.After the media and the GOP stared to project the "Gore cherry-picked those four counties" meme, Gore said fine, let's do a hand recount of every vote in every county. The Bush campaign said no and that was the end of that.So in the end, after researching the subject thoroughly, I have concluded that the Gore campaign only made two tactical errors: 1) They should have substituted Broward County with Duval County.2) They should have been been as adamant about counting overvotes as they were about counting undervotes (overvotes being those votes where people both wrote in a candidate's name and marked a vote on the ballot - which is clearly a no-brainer when it comes to voter intent as Florida law states).That's all I can find - hardly an egregious crime or something that would make Gore as culpable as Bush. I do believe history will bear the truth of this out, but sadly this documentary still holds this fatal flaw in the interest of appearing fair and balanced.
wrlang Unprecedented – the 2000 presidential elections is a movie all real Americans must watch. It is a sickening look at just how corrupt our nation's political parties have become. It happens in this case that the total lack of integrity falls on the republicans. Improper, almost criminal, activities of the supreme court, Katherine Harris and her entire office, Jeb Bush and his entire office, dozens of congressmen and senators, scores of aides. All of them stealing the birth right of Americans to suite their own nefarious need for power and the subjugation of the democratic process within our republic. The real question is not who was actually elected president, but whether true Americans can learn from this travesty and take back America from the hands of these two despicable, corrupt, and immoral political parties.
one1319 To keep the U.S. a democracy, with fair elections, you must see this and show it to friends. It's rather shocking to see how easy it is for people in power to upstage the public's right to elect their leaders. Unprecedented details the events of the 2000 election from beginning to end. It puts the events in perspective so that you will see all of what actually occurred; all the "out of public view" maneuvering that did not get covered by the press. I was shocked and saddened to see what has become of our voting system, and the ability of a very few, carefully-placed, powerful actors to control and even change election outcomes. Film also highlights the difficulties in having Presidential Campaign Managers be the County Registrar of Voters. The film becomes an adult civics lesson, important to everyone who cares about democracy.
LelandT If you thought you knew the fact about what happened in November & December of 2000 this documentary surprises you with more hard evidence that the main stream media has refused to report. Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Florida Secretary of State Harris planned for months before the election to purge the voter rolls of legally registered Democrats. And there are signed memos to prove it. This investigative journalism is truly amazing.