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2000 Presidential Election

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2000 Presidential Election
Recounting the 2000 Presidential Election The movie Recount tells the story of the ballot controversy in Florida during the 2000 presidential election of George W. Bush vs. Al Gore. Recount was written by Danny Strong, directed by Jay Roach, and produced by Kevin Spacey. It is told from the from the perspective of Kevin Spacey as Ron Klain, one of Vice President Gore 's lawyers. The film begins on November 7, 2000, the night of the presidential election. Florida is called for Governor Bush by all of the major news networks and Gore calls Bush to concede. However, a miscount involving a machine is discovered to be adding extra votes to Governor Bush 's total and subtracting votes from Vice President Gore 's total. The Associated Press was the only news outlet that had the correct numbers. Florida, with its 25 electoral votes,is too close to call and Gore retracts his concession. After all the votes have been counted, Al Gore is still down by about 2000 votes in Florida. The law requires a mandatory recount if the total votes are closer than 0.05%. Votes for Gore and Bush were within .01%, triggering a recount. A machine recount of the votes closed the gap to 327 votes favoring Governor Bush. The Gore campaign sued to extend the recount deadline and asking for a hand recount of the four most liberal counties in Florida on the grounds that the voting machines could not correctly count the voter 's intent. A previous court case in Florida held that ballots were required to be counted if it showed the voter 's intent to vote. Florida 's Secretary of State for Florida,Katherine Harris, refuses to extend the deadline to recount votes. Ron Klain and the Gore campaign appealed to the Florida Supreme Court. The Court ruled that all votes must be recounted and accepted by December 12. After this ruling the Bush campaign appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled all hand recounts of votes in Florida had to stop immediately and that the Court


Cited: The Associated Press. "Electoral College vs. Popular Vote Splits." Yahoo! News. Yahoo!, 06 Nov. 2012. Web. 13 Nov. 2012. . "U.S. Constitution - Amendment 26." - The U.S. Constitution Online. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Nov. 2012. . Wyatt, Edward. "HBO Film About 2000 Recount Draws Protests From Democrats." The New York Times. The New York Times, 14 May 2008. Web. 13 Nov. 2012. .

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