Unprecedented - The 2000 Presidential Election - 2004 Campaign Edition

Rating:
Summary: Finally The Truth About The 2000 Election
Review: A fifty-minute documentary that shows in concise and dramatic fashion just how certain Republicans, from Jeb Bush to Katherine Harris to various operatives, rigged the Florida vote in the 2000 Presidential Election and how the Supreme Court voted to deny Americans a fair election. The interviews are extensive and shocking; the "accidental" computer purging of eligible Black and Democrat voters was criminal; and the scenes of Republican political operatives interfering with recount efforts make it clear that we don't currently have a functional democracy in the United States. If we are about to install "free and fair elections" in Iraq, why can't we have them here too? Let us hope that Americans will watch this video, that the mainstream media will begin to cover political and electoral misdeeds, and that we will take steps to ensure a free and fair election in 2004. A great companion piece to this video is Greg Palast's book "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy," the first chapter of which covers some of the same ground (Investigative reporter Palast is interviewed at length in "Unprecedented" and he uncovered much of the Republican mischief in Florida).

Rating:
Summary: THE TRUTH, AND, AS OF TODAY, PERHAPS JUSTICE
Review: First of all, whomever at Amazon who vets these ought to not post any reviews from someone who admits THEY'VE NEVER SEEN THE DOCUMENTARY (like the guy a ways below). I have seen the documentary, a few months ago on IFC.

Secondly, the documentary goes out of its way to point out how Al Gore, idiot that he was/is, mis-handled the recount legality issues in the post-election days.

Thirdly, and most importantly, the documentary makes it abundantly clear that SOME United States citizens, residing in the state of Florida, were denied their legal right to vote in 2001. After you have seen this documentary, there is no doubt of that fact.

This is possibly the REAL story of how Harris (the then-Florida State Secretary), Bush & the Florida Republican-led Legislature fixed the 2000 Presidential election. And, for those of you exhausted on the subject, THE REAL STORY has little to do with the recount or "hanging chads".

Prior to the 2000 election, Harris and the Legislature retained a company called DBS systems. The state paid DBS millions of dollars to compile a list of felons residing in the state of Florida. The stated intention of this list was to enforce an obscure 100-year old Florida law that prevents convicted felons from voting.

In principle, however, Harris knew that a high number of blacks would turn up on any such list. Blacks in Florida have historically voted overwhelmingly Democrat (Jeb Bush was defeated in 1994 for Governor in Florida, when asked what he would do for impoverished blacks in the state of Florida if he were elected, replied "probably nothing").

At a post-2000-election NAACP-lawsuit trial, DBS officials gave testimony and documentation that Harris' office directed them to not match the first names, middle names or birthdates of anyone appearing on the list; DBS was instructed to only match the last name. DBS responded in writing that this would result in thousands of false positives, but Harris' office replied, in writing, no problem. And, when DBS reported that some felony conviction dates didn't match, Harris' office instructed DBS to remove the conviction dates from the list entirely!

Working from DBS's submitted list, Harris' office then moved to delete everyone on it from the poll rosters. In the process, they deleted a then-unknown number of perfectly legal, eligible voters from the polls, many of whom showed up at the polls and were subsequently denied their right as U.S. citizens to cast their vote.

And, as we all know now, Dubya only won Florida by 537 votes. Last month, the Florida State Board Of Elections admitted, under duress, that the list now has FORTY-SEVEN THOUSAND names.

Today, a Florida State judge halted all attempts by the State of Florida to keep the list secret, and has ordered it released to the press and anyone who wants it.

Hopefully, that just judicial ruling, and this documentary, will be viewed by history as getting us to where we are today: CLOSER TO THE TRUTH.

It's going to be REAL interesting, between now and November, when the list has been independently vetted and we find out just how many of the 47,000 are false positives.

It's also going to be REAL interesting, in November, in Florida, come Election Day, once EVERYBODY has the right to vote.

Rating:
Summary: Home of the brave, land of the free... yeah right!
Review: Obviously I'm not American, and after watching this dvd, I'm very VERY relieved. Your land is mean't to be the driving force of freedom and bravery, and instead is the laughing stock of the entire world, even your allies! Stop fooling yourself America! Your elections are jokes, your government is evil, your President is a puppet, your people are armed and you are all afraid all the time. What a way to be! You can't look at women's bossoms yet can buy a handgun!?! Huh? Take a good look around you. Your government attempts to 'buy friends' in other countries then turns on them like rabid dogs when they don't play ball. What a suprise. Wake up America. You are being taken down the garden path by the very hand of evil you trust. And stop with the guns! Haven't you learnt your lesson. Americans should NOT be armed... amendment or no amendment. Shoot first, ask questions later... now THAT'S the motto you should have. Forget the free and brave. That's just a joke! Oh, the dvd is excellent... and yes, you SHOULD be afraid... oh you know the rest!

Rating:
Summary: Bias doesn't necessarily equal untrue
Review: This documentary did an exceptional job of investigating the Florida vote controversy.
To address other negative reviewers arguments:

The documentary didn't try to link the felon list to black disenfranchisement alone. They offered the statistic that the majority of ex-felons vote for Democrats while also noting that 90% of all blacks vote for Democrats. Additionally, 50% of ex-felons in Florida are black. Add it all up, and Katharine Harris's masterful list of names would inevitably affect many more Democratic voters than Republican ones. It's as simple as that. She knew what she was doing. Purging of voter rolls is not new, but a statewide 15% error rate is absurb and wrong.
It WAS a concerted effort to block Democratic voters.

One fact that wasn't mentioned in the documentary was that the election commissioner in one county had her name removed from the rolls because she was supposedly a felon!

Harris was the CO-CHAIR of BUSH'S CAMPAIGN and she got to use her "discretion" to decide which votes to count! That fact alone is so absolutely outrageous (but true, regardless of your bias).

There is no doubt that this isn't the first time an election was stolen, even at the presidential level. But it's still disconcerting to know that the man who lost the popular vote and, by voters' intent, lost the electoral college is president today.

Even if you forget all the disenfranchisement controversy and just consider the thousands of votes Pat Buchanan got in the heavily Jewish/Democratic area with the infamous butterfly ballot, Gore would have won. Many voters mistakenly voted for Buchanan -- evident in personal testimonies and apparent in the extremely high number of votes Buchanan got in these Jewish communities. Buchanan is known for essentially saying the Holocaust didn't happen or something anti-Semitic like that (regardless of the details, even Buchanan himself stated after the election that those votes clearly weren't meant for him).

Sure, you can say some things are "biased" in this, but Republicans are so guilty of trying to sway the public view with bias (like claiming that Democrats wanted to block the military overseas ballots, which is just not true -- they wanted to make sure that illegal overseas absentee ballots were not counted). Democrats could make the claim that Republicans wanted to block the black and Jewish vote, which they basically did, but not exactly so. It's more true than saying Democrats didn't want the military to vote, which is what James Baker stated in a press conference on Bush's behalf. Just a blatant lie.

Lately Republicans try to equate "liberal bias" with something being false, when in fact it's their own bias that leads them to believe the truth is biased against them! I used to vote for Republicans more often than not, but now I have trouble seeing beyond the party affiliation. I admit I am a Jim Jeffords independent, but I admire moderate/independent-thinking Republicans such as John McCain, George Voinovich, and Arlen Specter, to name a few.

Overall, the documentary is not necessarily exciting, but at times the evidence presented is infuriating and shocking, though all completely true. Definitely a must-see for anyone living and voting in America.

Rating:
Summary: Oh boy...
Review: This video NAILED the real election story, the story out there, for those who know how to read beyond headlines, and who learned to ignore TV news outlets, long ago. There were some things it could have gone into, but didn't, but it's a short. One can't expect in depth data from film. It just doesn't happen.

Some corrections to Viewer in Midwest:

If ANY absentee vote isn't sent on time, then it doesn't count. Period. I don't care if it's from the Almighty himself, or from a soldier. How about some of that personal responsibility that Republicans are always screaming about? As a former airman, I voted in elections in my home state while I lived far, far away. I knew what I needed to do, and the military helped with that process. Still, it is up to YOU to make the arrangements to get the ballot and send it back in a timely fashion, so that it will arrive ON TIME. And you don't bellyache if it doesn't work that way because YOU were too lazy to do it.

As for Dems "starting" the craziness of the Y2K elections, of course the party leader would be there if doubts arose about the votes--that's his JOB. The Republicans made this a mess, in more ways than one, when THEY filed their crybaby lawsuits. Odd, since they don't want ordinary citizens filing lawsuits, but that's another point.

Rating:
Summary: Republicans stole the 2000 Election!
Review: Though the movie is only 40 min. long, it's still great. This movie goes into depth about how Katherine Harris, Clayton Roberts, Jeb Bush and the Republican Supreme Court Justices overthrew the right to vote. It goes into depth about the faulty Felon purge list, confusing punch card ballots, hypocritical Republican statements about manual recounting, and Supreme Injustice! Though i never got the impression of a "Right-wing bias" like the first reviewer, if it was it would be proving Bush played fair wouldn't it? Though some parts had a liberal bias, but then again conservatives stole the elections not lefties. I did not feel that Gore wouldn't of done a better job in office anyways, nor did it seem that he was making the effort to win. He ran Nader attack ads in states he was already going to win in, but none the less he is our president-elect and Bush is in office. I was happy to see Greg Palast in this film; by far he is one of my favorite investigative journalists. I just wonder when people are going to realize that both Democrats and Republicans are no better from each other. If you find that false, just look at Bush's and Gore's policies. THEY WERE THE SAME GUY! Both pro star wars, pro death penalty, pro WTO, Pro drug war and on and on it goes. This is a great film and it just goes to show that American Democracy is losing against the highest bidder and the Republican Party. And to all how says "Who cares? That was 2 years ago!" "Yes, but the presidency is 4 years long, and he cheated at our expense."