Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election (2002)

Perfect cast and a good story

Fresh and Exciting

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

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.

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.

If you are a relatively fair-minded, documentary/movie-loving individual who is a little concerned (even upset) by the current political climate of the United States or even the world at-large -- the possibility of international or domestic terrorism hits close to home for you, the consolidation of world economies under the treaties of the EU, AU, or NAFTA make you think there's a bigger and bigger gap growing every day between the rich and poor, and if you think that America (the most loved, hated, feared, and admired country in the world today) is the source for a lot of these problems -- then "Unprecedented" will almost beyond a shadow of a doubt confirm everything seedy and corrupt you thought went down in politics but could never prove.You may not be a Republican or a Democrat, a liberal or conservative -- you may just know liars and/or murderers when you see them. You may or may not vote, and you may or may not be active on political or social issues that mean a lot to you. No matter where you stand (or don't stand) on politics, this documentary is for you. It will no doubt prove to you that the currently Republican-dominated U.S. government is a direct cause of many of America's problems domestically and internationally. I'm talking primarily about the Bush Administrations: In Florida (my home state), Texas, and in 2000 the entire United States.This documentary, when I saw it in 2002, outraged me... And if you're paying attention, it'll outrage you, too.

Although certain statements in the film can be challenged, there's more than enough here to show the electorate got hosed in the 2000 presidential election.The U. S. Supreme Court ended up with egg on its face for making a decision on broad principles (due process, common vote recount law), then restricting the decision to the circumstances at hand (case established no precedent). They knew the decision stunk, all in the interest of putting the Republican candidate in the White House. And let's not even get into the blatant conflicts of interest three of the Supreme Court Justices had (Scalia, Thomas, O'Connor).Sadly, both the Gore and Bush camps went parochial, sacrificing the truth for possible victory. The Gore camp should have insisted that votes in all counties be recounted by hand and that military votes out of compliance with the requirements of the law be dismissed. (Surely we can agree the military knows what rules are and what the consequences are of not following them or failing to document compliance.) The Bush camp, likewise, should have been insisted on a full and complete recount.It seemed as if no one wanted to know what the voters of Florida actually voted. In the end, the people were denied the right to have their votes counted in a reasonably fair and accurate--by no means, perfect--manner. The loser won and our nation lost. This film is well worth seeing.