The film Unprecedented – The 2000 Presidential Election tells a mind-blowing story of the unlawful presidential elections in the United States. The events shown in the film are real historical events that take place in 2000 during the presidential elections. These elections are without a doubt, unprecedented in the history of the country because the amount of serious violations during them is striking. Overall, the film Unprecedented – The 2000 Presidential Election can be evaluated as a great piece of reliable information featuring a row of true historical details that leave no place for doubts about the fact that the 2000 presidential elections in the United States became the most illegitimate elections during the whole history of the country.
The film begins with a detailed description of the pre-history of the 2000 presidential elections in the United States. During this section, it becomes very clear that both parties, the Democrats and the Republicans, were determined to win by all means. In order to do so, they started manipulations with the lists of voters. In particular, as the Republican Party members knew for sure that the black population of Florida will support the candidate from the Democrats, they decided to put out as many African American voters from the voting lists as possible. To do so, they emphasized the law that prohibited voting for those citizens who were considered felons. The essence of their manipulation was in passing citizens without criminal convictions off as felons only because their names and birth dates were similar to those who had been really convicted. Besides, people who came from the other states (rather than Florida) had to send a petition to the representative of the Republican Party (the brother of the president-to-be) to be permitted to participate in the elections. As a result, thousands of people did not find their names in the voting lists and were disallowed to vote (The 2000 Presidential Election).
Next, the film shifts to explaining that in 2000, Florida became outstanding not only with regards to the number of those who were not permitted to vote, but also in the number of voting ballots that were considered damaged by the automatic counting machines, and was not taken into consideration during the first count. After a series of judicial proceedings, a decision was made to conduct a manual count of the results of elections in the four most arguable counties of Florida. Although the process was highly public, and both the representatives of the Republican and Democratic parties actively participated in it, the new count also had a terrible amount of serious violations. When the deadline for declaring the results of presidential elections came, George Bush has announced the new President of the United States. However, the striking number of violations, observed during the election procedures, made the majority of the citizens believe that Bush has stolen the presidency from the Democratic candidate, Albert Gore.
In conclusion, the film The 2000 Presidential Election demonstrates the staggering reality of the presidential elections in the United States in 2000. It shows a number of trustworthy facts proving that George Bush stole the presidency from Albert Gore by means of innumerable manipulations. This episode in the history of the country identified that despite its reputation of the country, where democratic values are promoted more than in any other land on the Earth, the United States had failed to provide its citizens with the freedom of legal will expression in 2000.
References
The 2000 Presidential Election. Ex. Prod. Robert Greenwald and Earl Katz. 2002. Web.