Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election

"Unprecedented" is an unsettling account of the 2000 Presidential Election, which should have been an alarm call to American citizens to do one of two major things: become active in moving forward voting reform, or become more apathetic about the entire voting process. It's another Robert Greenwald production, who has been well-known at putting together left leaning documentaries (on subjects such as Walmart and Rupert Murdoch) about important social and political issues. Even though this film tells the story of what put a Republican in office, and therefore does spin the information to prove without a doubt that an election was "stolen" from a Democrat, there are key societal issues that this film addresses that would hopefully affect viewers on a human level as opposed to a political level.

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.

The gory details of the 2000 election results frenzy are portrayed in this documentary, giving the viewer more details that have been divulged since. The story has shamefully been forgotten since 2000, prehaps because of subsequent events, but should be brought to the forefront as we near election time once again.

I saw this documentary in a movie theatre and hope that it will make its way to television at some point (which I believe it may have made it to the Sundance Channel). It is an important story to tell, and it is almost lost in the overwhelming amount of news since the election. An important and insightful side to this movie would be Greg Palast's (who is featured in the film) book "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy", which has a section on the events described in the film.

Starting with the illegal and unscrupulous manipulation of Florida's voter registration rolls, this film follows the legal tennis match over the U.S. 2000 Presidential election. The film is Left-biased, with a majority of the commentators and interviewees being from Florida civil rights advocacy organisations.

That said, this film should anger and upset just about everyone. If you're a see-no-evil conservative then you'll think this film is all lies and propaganda; everyone else will be outraged at what the Bush campaign got away with.

The final arguments of the film about the Supreme Court seem a little flimsy, but the majority of the material presented is sound, well-documented, clearly understandable, and can be easily researched yourself if you want to pursue the matter further.

A 50 min doc explaining the extremely complicated issue of the Florida vote recount in 2000. What not to like? Usually you need twice as much time to give the viewer this much information. It's an info dump made for viewers who otherwise wouldn't watch technical documentaries. A way to share into about the "unfair" Bush win over Gore to the masses.

Largely it focuses on how Bush's team used fishy tactics. Like being supported by Republican leaders in Florida, being supported by his brother, Jeb Bush, who was the governor of Florida. It's a ton of fishy devious tactics abusing the political system. Gore initially declared Bush president then retracted this statement to get a recount. He only demanded a recount in a few full on Democratic counties and they started the complicated recount. The issue was not counted ballots as the machines didn't work properly. Hence a hand recount anywhere would lead to more legal votes. A recount in a Democratic county would lead to more Democratic votes and a win for Gore. Initially the Supreme Court in Florida allowed it. Then the US Supreme Court said it wasn't allowed. Gore made a huge mistake. He only forced a few counties to recount their votes, clearly an unfair ask and a way to get extra votes for yourself while not getting any Republican counties to find extra votes. And the Supreme Court shut it down. What would happen if he had asked for a full recount? I'm not sure, but most states have automatic recounts if the vote is close so doing a full hand recount surely would have been approved. It's more likely than not that Bush would still have won. So maybe Gore did the only thing that gave himself a chance. But it was clearly irregular and there was no way Republicans in a Supreme Court would agree to it. Democrats of course did. Florida had Democrat governors which means their Supreme Court had Democrats supporting Gore. The doc doesn't mention this, but it overall just looks past more of the Democrat stuff to focus on Bush's tactics.

The doc is lots of fun. It's a lot of trickery. The wonderful movie Recount (2008) presents the story in a way less biased way. But I also get why the doc makers decided to mainly attack Bush and Republicans. They won so at the end their slimy tactics are the ones that counted the most. If Gore had won Republicans would have been the ones making the docs about it with their own slants and biases showing. The doc for example has Jake Tapper front a center being asked about everything. He's one of the biggest CNN anchors today in 2022 and clearly not neutral. Neither are many of the law professors they interview. They all take jabs at Republicans and Bush. Later Bush showed that the mistrust was warranted as he started 2 giant wars in the Middle East. One of which recently turned into a giant embarrassing loss for USA and the other still has not stabilized Iraq in any way. Plus it cost the American taxpayer trillions of dollars. So one has to wonder how Gore would have done? Gore was not ideal either as he was Clinton's vice president and Clinton ended his presidency on a sour note even basically selling pardons to his rich criminal friends on his last days in office. Which made Gore look corrupt too. Other presidents did badly too. But at least Obama and Trump didn't start any big wars. So that's why the 2000 recount will always be a giant point of discussion. It elected Bush who made 2 giant mistakes and many smaller ones. It also made Democrats question the legitimacy of elections up until Trump defeated Hillary. From then on left-wing media has stopped talking about fraud in elections while Republicans and centrists now mention it regularly. But these groups only control a very small part of the media landscape so the debate is way smaller now. You can still find old NYT articles complaining about ballot miscounts. Which is funny as they wouldn't dream of writing this today as it's a Republican talking point and much of social media has clamped down on voter fraud accusations after Republicans picked up the topic so it's not as easy to write about anymore. Which just makes this 2002 doc extra curious and relevant today. It shows us that the party that lost the election or popular vote will often be the party to complain about voter fraud. It's not a one-sided issue. And at some point a big-shot Democrat will lose again and mass media will yet again start writing about election fraud and refer to the 2000 election.