Nerve Endings Firing Away

This Sunday, we saw the made-for-TV movie, Recount on HBO. This docu-drama reflected on the events from the chaotic November of the 2000 Presidential Elections. Starring Kevin Spacey, Dennis Leary, Laura Dern among other individuals, this movie looked back at the mess following the election on November 7th right through the events until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of George W. Bush on 12th December. In spite of the complexities of the events involved, the movie managed to do a great job of showing us the backroom dealings that went into electing the President of one of the most reputable democracies of the world. Kevin Spacey playing the character of Ron Klain is given a pivotal role as he rallies Gore supporters and takes advantage of the legal challenges in order to get the votes recounted.

Much of the movie’s beauty lies in the different interpretations by the two opposing parties who try to twist the ambiguous Florida voting laws to their advantage. Since the first count showed Bush to be the winner, the Bush camp is desperate to stall any recounting whereas the Gore camp is trying desperately to get the recounts going in at least the counties that usually lean Democratic. The extremely small margin of 534 votes among millions of votes cast in one of the most populous states of the United States showed how close the race was. Add to that the various pre-election strategies by the Bush camp to disenfranchise voters that generally lean Democratic also added color to the story. This story wouldn’t be complete without talking about the various election paraphernalia like butterfly ballots, chad (plural of chad is also chad, we were told), hanging or dimpled chads, etc. Probably intentional but the movie also showed contrastingly styles of the Gore and Bush campaigns. The Gore camp chose the fair and legal route aimed at including all the votes cast and arguing for the voters intent whereas on the other hand, the Bush camp led by James Baker (played by Tom Wilkinson) essayed a more sinister touch with literally street brawl-type politics that the Indian hinterland is known for. The confusion was finally settled first in the Florida Supreme Court and then the United States Supreme Court (which voted 5-4 in favor of Bush) by halting the recount. As Klain screams at one point that he would just like to know who really won considering that the votes were never really recounted and given the extremely small margin of victory in a large state subjected to voter suppression, it might’ve gone either way. But then as Michael Whouley (played by Dennis Leary) put it nicely that hindsight is 20/20 because any event in the preceding year however minor could have also tilted the election the other way. At one point during the movie, the opposing camps were showing literally cheering addition of every single vote in their column during the recounting process.

It sounds surprising that a country known for its technological prowess cannot conduct a simple election with electronic means without kicking up such a fuss. However lack of technology implementation alone cannot be blame. The constitutional basis of the United States is such that every state or even county has its own set of rules pertaining to the election even if it is a federal election. To top it all, the laws are subject to whimsical enforcement by state officials who are even hold conflict-of-interest positions. For example, Katherine Harris delightfully played by Laura Dern in charge of certifying the election results and responsible for granting extensions for vote recounts was also the campaign co-chair for Bush. The failure of the system to count dimpled or hanging chad that clearly reflects the intent of the voters can easily be considered a travesty of the democratic system. But in the end, it was also nice to know that the system is much more transparent and accountable than it is elsewhere. Just because such problems do not crop up elsewhere in the world does not mean they do not exist (if you are unaware of voter fraud, then does it exist?) Poor Florida and its elderly denizens received much flak for messing up what may have been the most important election of its time given how subsequent events over the past seven years have turned out.

The movie does a fine job of narrating the intensely complex and emotionally-wrought story of those four weeks. I can imagine if Gore was watching the movie, he must have been wringing his hands in frustration and wondering if he could only go back in time and tweak some little detail. After all, it was only 534 votes.