Rating: 
Summary: Democracy Denied in Florida
Review: "Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election" tells the story behind the shameful clutching of victory from the jaws of defeat by the Bush team over Al Gore through a manipulation of the political process in Florida. The result was democracy denied and the accession to the presidency of a candidate who lost the popular vote and, but for the application of tactics befitting a totalitarian state, eked out "victory" by adding the scandal-tarnished electoral votes of Florida.
This film, produced by Robert Greenwald, with comments by Danny Glover and narration by Peter Coyote, has won a host of documentary awards. It tells the story of the calamitous post-election period in a simple and straightforward way in revealing the manipulation of the democratic process through highjacking the voting process before and after the election.
Greg Palast, author of the bestselling work "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" and the current DVD adapted from it, is a featured source in this hard-hitting documentary. He relates how, after being spurned in his efforts to track down the story of how Jeb Bush, the Republican presidential candidate's brother, as Florida governor, with the assistance of Secretary of State Katherine Harris, was responsible for scrubbing 95,000 voters from the voting roles. Almost all of the deprived were African Americans, whose voting rights were denied the pretense of preventing felons from voting under Florida law.
It was necessary for Palast to obtain cooperation and support from across the Atlantic through the British Broadcasting Corporation to tackle this story after being spurned by the U.S. corporate media. When he visited Florida's capital city of Tallahassee Palast blew the story wide open. Palast had learned that a company called Data Base Technologies had been hired to run a check of names of Florida prospective voters to determine if they had previous felony convictions.
While DBT provided a long list of names extending across America, company functionaries cautioned Jeb Bush and his subordinates to check more thoroughly since the original list was considered to be preliminary. This raw list needed refinement by checking out names on the list individually.
Palast visited Clay Roberts, Katherine Harris's second in command and Florida's elections commissioner. In a brief but highly revealing interview, an agitated Roberts, the moment that the BBC reporter mentioned Data Base Technologies and the list it prepared for the state of Florida, jumped up from his chair. In a trembling, angry tone he terminated the interview. When Palast rose and attempted to show the DBT list, which was only supposed to serve as a beginning point prior to additional checking, Roberts darted into his office.
A still highly agitated Roberts called out to Palast. As he declared that the reporter must leave immediately a Florida State Trooper summoned by the rattled Roberts to escort Palast from the building flashed Palast a sympathetic smile and declared, "There's never a dull moment around here."
While citing the mainstream media for its failure to reveal what was really happening in the critical post-election period, the film discloses that the first network to declare George Bush the winner of the election was his first cousin John Ellis, who ran the election desk at Fox News.
Another important event covered in "Unprecedented" is the riot at Miami's Federal Building, when Republican thugs disrupted the recounting of Dade County presidential ballots. Certain key figures are identified, office staffers of Republican congressmen who visited Florida to disrupt the recount process.
The U.S. Supreme Court majority's action in halting the Florida recount, thereby conferring victory on Bush, is also examined. The conflicts of interest of Chief Justice Antonin Scalia and Associate Justice Clarence Thomas are disclosed, as well as how they were disregarded for the sake of political expedience.
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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).
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Summary: I WILL NOT GET OVER IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Review: A question to the neocons:
Should the founders of our nation have gotten over the injustices of the other King GEORGE and just settled down an been good colonists?
Should the Jews of the world get over the concentration camps?
Should the indigenous peoples of "america" that were murdered by american soldiers get over it?
Should americans of african descent get over the fact that they have been enslaved and murdered and denied jobs and kept in poverty for FOUR HUNDRED YEARS and still can't get into college?
I just finished watching this DVD and, Brother, I am NEVER going to get over the naked usurpation of our Democracy by the criminal elements now illegally occupying the White House!
Perhaps if you watched it you would begin to see how you have been conned by these criminals.
Or maybe they have to drag your son or daughter or grandchild away to die for oil before the fog is lifted from your eyes?!?!BOB KASPRZAK, A PROUD LIBERAL PATRIOT AND VETERAN FROM PHILLY,PA PS , epistemology: the study of how we know what we know
Rating: 
Summary: A Right Wing View Of A Doomed Political Contest.
Review: An interesting but biased view of the Florida vote in the 2000 Presidential election. While you will have no trouble deciding which side of the political coin this gentleman sits on, it is a fascinating topic of debate. Personally, I wish both sides had a better argument than the one presented here. Several issues present themselves for both sides: Democrats in the various southern counties of Florida did approve the ballot used in the election (what were they thinking?); Republicans argued about 'chads' and which ones were hanging by a thread. Hey...Here's a clue - If the Democratic candidate is punched on the ballot, does it matter if the chad is hanging?; Democrats didn't want the military vote added and sued that they were late and should be thrown out; Republicans didn't want all the counties re-counted; Democrats started the chaos with bringing in the party leader to oversee the fight; Republicans had K. Harris declaring the vote before everyone was counted; Democrats should have been ashamed that their candidate lost his own home State of Tennessee - That's a clue by itself...Had he won it...FL wouldn't have been an issue to begin with; Republicans filed suits faster than catching the common cold...And so forth. I disagree with the previous reviewer in that the 'lost' votes in Black areas was a deliberate act by left-wing Republicans. It was an affront to the State of Florida as a whole. The voting process was doomed from the beginning. Their process had been in place for years. The election year process was not handled differently - it was the same as in the past previous elections. Because of the importance of Florida - it garnered attention. Both parties are responsible and should have seen this coming. It never ends! Would either candidate's election have satisfied us - NO. Was the whole process botched by both parties - YES. Was the election fair to anyone - NO. After viewing this video along with CNN's version, you come to conclusion that this mess could have been much worse and whether you like the outcome or not, the Supreme Court put it to rest. I do not blame either party at all, I blame the system that set this course of events into play. Sad thing about it...It'll happen again someday.
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Summary: A real wake-up call
Review: Anyone who believes that George Bush was actually elected to the White House, or, for that matter, that we actually live in a democracy had better get a look at this film.
In a concise, engaging fashion, this investigative report brings us back to the controversial election of 2000, and the seemingly endless Florida recount. The shocking news here is not that Gore would have won if ALL the votes were counted, but that tens of thousands of voters - predominently African-American, overwhelmingly Democrat - were "disqualified" from voting in the first place, by means of a "felon purge list" which smacks of foul play by the partisan Secretary of State, Katherine Harris.
For me, the most chilling part of the film comes at the very end, in a short expose of touch screen electronic voting machines. They have been a source of some controversy in my home state, as they leave no paper trail which can ever be verified.
In the aftermath of the most recent elections, which John Kerry seemed to be winning until suddenly the votes are in and he loses, maybe it's time for a sequel, "Unprecedented II: The Mandate."
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Summary: Confirms what everyone already knows..
Review: As usual, time validates all the assertions made in this movie: The growing Diebold voting machine scandal, Bush getting caught in more lies and the continuing political fallout in Florida. Everyone already figured out that G. Bush, his brother and his supporters monkeyed with the Florida vote, this film simply does a good job of telling the story. All the corruption and stupidity involved in this vote scam is exposed in this film. Watch Unprecedented and learn from it since this voter flim-flam will happen again!
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Summary: Reviving the Nightmare of 2000 in 2004? Let's Hope Not
Review: As we are mere hours away from the opening of the polls, it is appropriate to take a good, hard look at this concise, fast-paced documentary, which serves as a history lesson on our nation's most controversial election in 2000. No film will motivate you more to vote today, and one would hope that subsequent election reforms would ensure history would not repeat itself. Michael Moore covered this ground on a cursory albeit dramatically effective manner in the memorable beginning of his documentary, "Fahrenheit 9/11". Filmmakers Richard Ray Pérez and Joan Sekler, however, delve much deeper into the morass that changed the course of our leadership.
This film is a powerful indictment of the current electoral process, as the disturbing picture that emerges is fraught with suspicious irregularities, electoral injustices, and sinister voter purges in a state governed by Jeb Bush, the winning candidate's brother. We learn Jeb Bush's motivation for misrepresenting the election results corresponds with his extreme unpopularity with blacks in his state. The Republican strategy was intended to suppress the democratic vote since 93% of African Americans are registered Democrats. The documentary also goes into voters improperly removed from the rolls, with a particular emphasis on the "Felon Purge List". In one of the more shocking moments, the film reveals that more than 175,000 ballots were uncounted by Florida's voting machines. No complete hand recount was ever conducted. From there, we get into the half-hearted attempts to recount votes in certain counties, which raised all sorts of still open-ended issues. Much of the film follows this process and ends with a look at reforms and concerns for the future, with an emphasis on controversies connected to touchscreen voting. The filmmakers disclose that only a year later, when a consortium of U.S. media organizations published results of an exhaustive examination of these unread ballots, that the conclusion was reached that Al Gore received more votes and would have been our 43rd President. Granted, Pérez and Sekler have a tendency toward overstatement at times and some of the evidence presented is apocryphal, but the issues raised make this one of the most important films to watch in this or any election year. In fact, considering how close the 2004 race is at this moment, I would consider this essential viewing.
Rating: 
Summary: More proaganda than documentary
Review: Bottom line...
1. If you liked Gore, you will love it and visa versa.
2. It is one-sided, plain and simple.
3. Nobody considers the poor inept voter who failed to comprehend a simple ballot, or the responsibility of a voter to unsterstand at least enough English to distinguish "GORE from BUSH". Democrats wanted quantity, and the lack of quality also extended into the indecisive and ambiguous recount procedures that hundreds of lawyers just couldn't get right.
Rating:
Summary: Was this a fair election?
Review: By any standards, absoutely not; the video will show you why. If you don't buy this, you still must see it-rent it. It's so sad that this did really happen...
Rating:
Summary: it seems obvious some of the "reviewers" haven't seen this
Review: c'mon folks! don't waste my time if you haven't seen the video!
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