Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election

Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election
Directed by	Richard Ray Perez Joan Sekler
Written by	William Haugse Richard Ray Perez Joan Sekler
Produced by	Richard Ray Perez Joan Sekler
Starring	Danny Glover (2004) Peter Coyote
Cinematography	Richard Ray Perez
Edited by	William Haugse Matthew Martin
Music by	Bobby Johnston
Distributed by	Alternavision Films
Release date	September 17, 2002 (U.S. premiere)
Running time	47 min. (2002) 57 min. (2004)
Language	English

Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election is a 2002 47-minute documentary made by Richard Ray Perez and Joan Sekler and narrated by Peter Coyote about the contested 2000 presidential election in Florida. It was re-released two years later in an extended 57-minute 2004 Campaign Edition presented by Danny Glover to tie in with the 2004 US Presidential Election.

Plot

The film chronicles the 2000 US Presidential Election aftermath, centering on the contested ballots of the state of Florida. Many Democratic and leftist supporters, campaign workers, and citizens were interviewed regarding the possible exclusion of many valid ballots. According to the film, Secretary of the State of Florida Katherine Harris and her associates used a wide ranging data collection system to prevent ineligible voters (such as ex-cons) from casting a ballot; the controversy stems from the claims that the data system excluded many people who were eligible to vote. The film offers evidence that many people who share a name and nothing else with an ex-con in a state were denied their right to vote. The cases of mistaken identity were not discovered until citizens reached the polls, when it was too late to prove their identity and correct the mistake.

The film then attempts to draw a connection between Governor Jeb Bush, Katherine Harris, the Republican Party (both national and the state party) worked to conspire ahead of the election to deny African Americans their right to vote through the flawed data system that excludes ex-cons and ineligible voters. The reasoning behind this conspiracy is that African Americans typically vote heavily in favor of Democratic candidates, and the Republicans worked to exclude these votes to capture the state's electoral votes. Another area of contention brought up by the film is that recounts were only taken in certain counties, not statewide; again, this is suggested to be a Republican tactic due to the evidence presented by the film which claims that the recounts in those counties were vastly different from the original count.

Alternate versions

The 2004 extended 57-minute 2004 Campaign Edition was released to tie in with the 2004 US Presidential Election. This edition of the film features an filmed introduction from Danny Glover and an epilogue spent analyzing the drawbacks of the new computer ballot system, which does not leave any paper trail with which to enact a manual hand recount should the need arise. The film claims that the computer systems also had errors, but there was no way to know how many due to the lack of a paper trail.

The computer ballot example used is the Georgia Governor's race between incumbent Roy Barnes and challenger, and victor, Sonny Perdue in 2002. Because Governor Perdue is the first Republican governor elected in Georgia since Reconstruction, the film strongly suggests that hackers and key personnel with access to the computer balloting system may have been able to influence the outcome of the election, propelling Perdue to the governor's mansion. The film does not mention the wide array of political issues which had made Governor Barnes very unpopular in the state before the election, specifically his drastic reductions in education spending and overall budgetary difficulties of the state.

Contributors

• Danny Glover - Presenter (2004 Campaign Edition)
  
• Peter Coyote - Narrator
  

• Cathy Dubin - Democratic Part, Palm Beach County
  
• Thomasina Williams - Voting Rights Attorney, NAACP
  
• Andy Johnson - WJGR, Jacksonville
  
• Yvonne Montalvo - Poll Volunteer, Orlando
  
• Pam Iorio - Supervisor of Elections, Hillsborough County
  
• John Lantigua - Pulitzer Prize-Winning Investigative Journalist
  
• Sharon Lettman-Pacheco - People for the American Way Foundation
  
• Anthony C. Hill - Former Florida State Representative (D)
  
• Andrew Gillum - Florida A&M University
  
• Greg Palast - Author, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy
  
• John Nichols - Author, Jews for Buchanan
  
• Rev. Willie Whiting - Pastor, Tallahassee
  
• Corrine Brown - U.S. Congresswoman, Florida 3rd District (D)
  
• Ion Sancho - Supervisor of Elections, Leon County
  
• Clayton Roberts - Director, Florida Division of Elections
  
• Rev. Thomas Johnson - Pastor, Gainesville
  
• Howard Simon - American Civil Liberties Union, Florida
  

• Jake Tapper - Author, Down and Dirty: The Plot to Steal the Presidency
  
• Chris Sautter - Co-Author, The Recount Primer
  
• Timothy Downs - Co-Author, The Recount Primer
  
• Mark Seibel - News Editor, The Miami Herald
  
• Charles Lichtman - Attorney, Florida Democratic Party
  
• Mark Herron - Attorney, Florida Democratic Party
  
• Dan Keating - Data Base Editor, Washington Post
  
• Sean Holton - Projects Editor, Orlando Sentinel
  
• Vincent Bugliosi - Author, The Betrayal of America
  
• Jamin Raskin - Law Professor, American University
  
• Ed Baker - Law Professor, University of Pennsylvania
  
• Alan Dershowitz - Author, Supreme Injustice
  
• Frances Fox Piven - Co-Author, Why Americans Don't Vote
  
• Amy Quinn - Coordinator, Democracy Summer
  

• Prof. David Dill, Ph.D - Sanford University (2004 Campaign Edition)
  
• Avi Rubin - Information Security Institute, Johns Hopkins University (2004 Campaign Edition)
  
• Kim Alexander - California Voter Rights Foundation (2004 Campaign Edition)

Reception

Reviews

Ned Martel, writing in the New York Times, describes it and its companion piece Unconstitutional: The War on Our Civil Liberties as somber films, which use experts and eyewitnesses to less rousing effect than Michael Moore. He concludes that, From the muddle comes a coda warning that electronic voting machines, to be used next month in some states, will have no paper trail, no possibility of audit and even less evidence for polemicists like Mr. Greenwald who want to make sense — or political hay — of the aftermath.

See also

• Bush Family Fortunes (2004)
• Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)

External links

• Filmmakers homepage
• Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election at IMDb