The dramatic television movie Recount revisits the Presidential election results controversy that occurred in 2000 during the Presidential race between George W. Bush and former Vice President Al Gore.
The HBO movie premiered Sunday, May 25, 2008 at 9:00/8:00c. It won the 2008 Emmy Award for Outstanding Made for Television Movie.
The Controversy
The Presidential race is determined in the United States by the winner of the electoral vote (the number of votes per state voted by the elector.) The popular vote is the actual number of votes that the American people put forth for their favorite candidate.
Al Gore received 543,895 more popular votes than George W. Bush, who obtained the greater number of electoral votes in the 2000 election. George W. Bush won 271 electoral votes in comparison to the 266 votes that Al Gore received.
Voting residents in Florida were instrumental in determining the number of electoral votes in 2000 and the voting totals were disputed by Gore in what has been termed the "chad controversy." The Democratic Party ordered a recount of the votes and the voting board agreed that hanging chads (holes not totally punched) were reliable indicators that the voter intended to vote for that candidate and were to be included in the overall total.
