Recount Movie

[JamesA1102]

Great movie. It really illustrates that Gore would have won had the Supreme Court not stopped the recount.

I do have a few minor complaints based on some omissions made in the film.

First, Gore did offer Bush a full statewide recount on Nov. 12th and Bush refused.

Second, regarding military ballots while it made clear that Gore campaign's memo did not target military ballots it did not note that the Bush campaign's counsel issued a memo regarding the standards for absentee ballots that was almost word for word identical to the Gore campaign's memo.

Third, also in regard to military ballots Republicans objected to and had throw out almost twice as many military ballots in heavily democratic districts.

Finally, they never turned a critical eye on the media which slanted their coverage to favor Bush from day one. Many of the facts presented in the film plus those I pointed out above were never covered by the news media in this country. I assume that HBO didn't want to piss-off it's sister channel CNN but it still would have been nice if there was at least one line to recognize the blatant media bias that went on in 2000.

[madmax]

1. They also omitted that Faux News was the first

to call Florida for Bush after all the major stations called it for Gore and then pulled it back to too close to call. That's what I remember. Am I wrong?

[johnfunk]

9. I think HBO ignored FAUX because it's not really a news channel!

Okay, maybe it has something to do with FARCE Noise Channel being a CNN competitor (as is MSNBC, which was also omitted), but you can't help thinking...

[L. Coyote]

10. Bush's first cousin working at Fox, John Ellis, called it for Bush.

George W. Bush steals 2000 Election
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SprsUaX5j78

[dsc]

2. actually they did what you said under second

they point out that the very same standards were being used, at Bush's insistance, to reject absentee ballots from Israel (in the call with Lieberman).

[NJSecularist]

3. If the SCOTUS hadn't issued a stay on the Florida Supreme Court recount..

Bush still would have won by about 500 votes. The parameters of the Florida Supreme Court recount weren't going to give Gore enough votes to put him over the top.

However, if a recount was made on the basis of counting all votes based on what each county's election officials had set as valid parameters for a recount before the election, Gore would have won.

[JamesA1102]

6. That's not true!

The Media Consortium hired the National Opinion Research Center to examine 175,010 ballots that were never counted in Florida. The investigation took 8 months and cost $900,000. No matter what standard for judging ballots is applied, Gore wins.


Certified by Katherine Harris
Gore Deficit or Lead -537


Valid votes found after certification
Gore Gain +59
Gore Deficit or Lead -478


Correctly marked paper ballots
Gore Gain +493
Gore Deficit or Lead +15

Full punches
Gore Gain +100
Gore Deficit or Lead +115

Poorly marked paper ballot
Gore Gain +309
Gore Deficit or Lead +424

3-corner chads
Gore Gain -208
Gore Deficit or Lead +216

2-corner chads
Gore Gain -111
Gore Deficit or Lead +105

1-corner chads
Gore Gain -45
Gore Deficit or Lead +60

Dimples with sunlight
Gore Gain +88
Gore Deficit or Lead +148

Dimples
Gore Gain -41
Gore Deficit or Lead +107

http://www.norc.uchicago.edu/fl/index.asp

[NJSecularist]

7. You're wrong.

Here's proof:

http://www.nytimes.com/images/2001/11/12/politics/recount/results/preset-v1.html

[mountainvue]

11. What about the Miami Herald's recount?

http://archive.democrats.com/display.cfm?id=181

[JamesA1102]

14. Nice bit of mathematical trickery by the Times

As that stated on the 'What if' tab "Counties that said they would not have conducted a recount are not included." However, all the counties were recounting the under votes after Supreme Court ordered them too.

[yowzayowzayowza]

12. Yet none of Gore's possible victory margins exceeds the certified margin.

That always seemed fabulously improbable. :freak:

[Mabus]

4. And they didn't mention FAMU

The students whose precincts were moved and/or had to go through police checks to get to their polling places. The kids protested at the state house but their actions were largely ignored by the media.

I agree that they let the media skate. They let them skate big time.

[opihimoimoi]

5. How in the World can those Family Valued guys be proud of their Party??

They Stole the damn thing...lied cheated stole....how are they supposed to be GOOD, like in their Family Values Code they supposedly use?

They are thieves and scammers...il fit to be Leaders....and 7 years later, no shit...lookit the damage....Damn....

[napi21]

8. Has anything ever been done about purging voter rolls?

This movie brought back a lot of memories and anger in me. It's been EIGHT DAMN YEARS but I know I've heard about voter rolls still being purged in many States. I don't mean that it should never be done. There are valid reasons to do it on some kind of schedule. People die, and they move. Although I've always registered in my new precinct, I NEVER thought to notify the old one that I'm not there anymore. I doubt many people do. But the way it's been done in the last 8-10 years is ILLEGAL, but I've not heard of any progress in correcting the problem!

[JustAnotherGen]

13. I had to turn it off . . .

It was actually pretty good, but I had the sickest feeling in my stomache. I think I threw up in my mouth when the Neo-Con thugs stormed the office where the recount was taking place . . .


I can watch it again come December - but it's good for the mad moms in minivans in the midwest to watch so they can understand how freaking angry so many Americans have been for close to 8 years. Truth be told (for them at least) - AT LAST. Effing sheeples.

[question everything]

15. It was a great movie, and hard to watch

How flippant it was for Baker to claim that "there were no tanks in the streets.."

I think that the media preferred Bush was because... he offered a more interesting story. A frat boy, a former alcohol (and drugs?) abuser with an easy manners with whom many would love to drink beer...

Let's face it. Our candidates: Dukakis, Gore, Kerry, have always presented an image of very serious, deep thinking men with whom most voters could not identify. This is still the greatness of Bill Clinton. That he did connect.

We know that when a consortium of media outlet finally did count all the ballots, that Bush still came ahead by 300-something.

But the outrageous if the story was the inflating the list of convicts who could not vote, and, I think, of many minorities who could not even vote because of long lines - if memory serves me.

[burythehatchet]

16. Have I told you how much I hate Lieberman?

[question everything]

17. It was not only Lieberman. Also Christopher

and.. yes, Gore.

We, democrats, have decided to play nice and to choose the "high road.." even our candidates have been highly educated talking in multisylables, preferring to stay away from "street battle.."

[chelsea0011]

18. HBO belts one out of the park. Nice job.

[shagsak]

19. I made it through the whole thing

But I am pretty sure there were quite a few inconsistencies that I didn't see or know about. Overall it was an OK piece depending on it's actual accuracy.