Recount

Recount chronicles the 2000 United States Presidential Election Bush v. Gore case between Governor of Texas George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore. It begins with the election on November 7 and ends with the Supreme Court ruling which stopped the Florida election recount on December 12. Key points depicted include Gore’s retraction of his personal telephone concession to Bush in the early hours of November 8; the decision by the Gore campaign to sue for hand recounts in Democratic strongholds where voting irregularities were alleged, especially in light of the statistical dead heat revealed by the reported machine recount; Republican pressure on Florida’s Secretary of State Katherine Harris in light of her legally mandated responsibilities; the attention focused on the hand recounts by media, parties, and the public; the two major announcements by Florida Supreme Court spokesman Craig Waters extending the deadline for returns in the initial recount (November 21, 2000) and ordering a statewide recount of votes (December 8, 2000), and later overturned by the United States Supreme Court; and finally the adversarial postures of the Supreme Courts of Florida and the United States, as well as the dissenting opinions amongst the justices of the higher court.