Product Details

• Actors: Peter Coyote, Ed Baker, James Baker III, Corrine Brown, Vincent Bugliosi
• Directors: James Baker III, Joan Sekler, Richard Ray Perez
• Writers: Joan Sekler, Richard Ray Perez, William Haugse
• Producers: Joan Sekler, Amy Sommer, Earl Katz
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rating: Unrated
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Sony
• VHS Release Date: June 24, 2003
• Run Time: 50 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (57 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000096I8F
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #31,739 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

In the course of 47 provocative minutes, Unprecedented leaves little doubt that the 2000 presidential election was a mockery of justice. Focusing on rampant, court-sanctioned abuses of the democratic process in Florida, directors Richard Ray Perez and Joan Sekler present a thorough reexamination of the circumstances that allowed the election of George W. Bush, including the Gore campaign's fatal failure to request the state-wide recount to which the Democratic party was legally entitled. In particular, the political ambitions of Florida secretary of state Katherine Harris are exposed with devastating, irrefutable evidence of cronyism, including the Bush administration's post-election appointment of the son of Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, whose support of Florida's haphazard election results was arguably a violation of his oath. Through it all, Florida's African American voters and discounted "felons" are victimized by a bureaucratic nightmare of exclusion, and uncounted votes remained officially in limbo. The film's liberal bias is obvious (it was executive produced by Robert Greenwald, the director of Outfoxed), but Unprecedented is ultimately an impassioned plea to Americans of every political affiliation: If you don't vote, you will further weaken the democratic principles that were so fatefully violated in Florida. --Jeff Shannon

Los Angeles Times

"Illuminating and persuasive...this film incisively lays bare everything they say went wrong with the election in Florida."

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

57 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Well-Investigated and Thought-Provoking Movie, November 1, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Unprecedented - 2000 Presidential Election (DVD)

I just saw this movie and we had the opportunity to speak with the directors afterwards. It was a thoroughly investigated and informative look at the 2000 election. To counter comments made in a negative review--regarding the lack of Republican interviews--this question was asked of the directors this evening. Requests for interviews were sent to all key parties involved in the election, Republican and Democratic. All major Republican players declined their invitations. As well, many key Democratic officials declined to interview. The directors of this movie went to great lengths to show only those issues that were well-corroborated. There were many topics that they left out, such as rumors of police turning voters away, or stolen ballot-boxes, etc. because of lack of supporting evidence.

I urge everyone to watch this movie, Republican, Democratic, or otherwise. This movie will force us all to take a long, hard look at the flawed election system in the US and ultimately, to think about what we need to do to fix it.

187 of 213 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bias doesn't necessarily equal untrue, November 3, 2003

By	IndependentVoter - See all my reviews

This review is from: Unprecedented - 2000 Presidential Election (DVD)

This documentary did an exceptional job of investigating the Florida vote controversy.
To address other negative reviewers arguments:

The documentary didn't try to link the felon list to black disenfranchisement alone. They offered the statistic that the majority of ex-felons vote for Democrats while also noting that 90% of all blacks vote for Democrats. Additionally, 50% of ex-felons in Florida are black. Add it all up, and Katharine Harris's masterful list of names would inevitably affect many more Democratic voters than Republican ones. It's as simple as that. She knew what she was doing. Purging of voter rolls is not new, but a statewide 15% error rate is absurb and wrong.
It WAS a concerted effort to block Democratic voters.

One fact that wasn't mentioned in the documentary was that the election commissioner in one county had her name removed from the rolls because she was supposedly a felon!

Harris was the CO-CHAIR of BUSH'S CAMPAIGN and she got to use her "discretion" to decide which votes to count! That fact alone is so absolutely outrageous (but true, regardless of your bias).

There is no doubt that this isn't the first time an election was stolen, even at the presidential level. But it's still disconcerting to know that the man who lost the popular vote and, by voters' intent, lost the electoral college is president today.

Even if you forget all the disenfranchisement controversy and just consider the thousands of votes Pat Buchanan got in the heavily Jewish/Democratic area with the infamous butterfly ballot, Gore would have won. Many voters mistakenly voted for Buchanan -- evident in personal testimonies and apparent in the extremely high number of votes Buchanan got in these Jewish communities. Buchanan is known for essentially saying the Holocaust didn't happen or something anti-Semitic like that (regardless of the details, even Buchanan himself stated after the election that those votes clearly weren't meant for him).

Sure, you can say some things are "biased" in this, but Republicans are so guilty of trying to sway the public view with bias (like claiming that Democrats wanted to block the military overseas ballots, which is just not true -- they wanted to make sure that illegal overseas absentee ballots were not counted). Democrats could make the claim that Republicans wanted to block the black and Jewish vote, which they basically did, but not exactly so. It's more true than saying Democrats didn't want the military to vote, which is what James Baker stated in a press conference on Bush's behalf. Just a blatant lie.

Lately Republicans try to equate "liberal bias" with something being false, when in fact it's their own bias that leads them to believe the truth is biased against them! I used to vote for Republicans more often than not, but now I have trouble seeing beyond the party affiliation. I admit I am a Jim Jeffords independent, but I admire moderate/independent-thinking Republicans such as John McCain, George Voinovich, and Arlen Specter, to name a few.

Overall, the documentary is not necessarily exciting, but at times the evidence presented is infuriating and shocking, though all completely true. Definitely a must-see for anyone living and voting in America.

202 of 231 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally The Truth About The 2000 Election, May 18, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Unprecedented - 2000 Presidential Election (DVD)

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).