Professor and screenwriter recount 2000 election controversy

The movie, which was screened in the Frist Film and Performance Theatre before the discussion, documents the story of the 2000 presidential election controversy through instances of chaos and political corruption during the battle between then-Vice President Al Gore and then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush for the tiebreaking electoral votes. It focuses specifically on the Florida recount and the subsequent controversial Supreme Court decision in Bush v. Gore.

“This is an amazing chapter of U.S. history that I don’t think anyone knows anything about,” Strong said during the discussion.

Strong, best known for his roles in movies and television shows such as “Seabiscuit,” “Gilmore Girls” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” explained the challenges of creating the movie.

As he set out to produce the movie, which was made for television and released in May 2008, Strong said, he sought to interview at least one of the real-life participants for each scene. He explained, however, that he soon expanded his research to interviewing “a majority of the [major] characters” portrayed in the film.

Many of the books written about the controversy are extremely one-sided, he said.

“It’s pretty fascinating how manipulative people can be,” Strong noted, explaining that the film reflects the points of view of both campaigns.

The film’s portrayal has been generally accepted as uncontroversial, he added.

“There wasn’t some massive attack on Fox News saying this film is biased against Republicans,” he said. “There wasn’t a massive movement on the left saying this film is inaccurate.”

Harris-Lacewell noted that despite the razor-thin margin in the Florida election, the reality is that individual votes generally do not count for much.

“Whatever you come down to, when it starts to look like little numbers, people vastly overestimate the ‘P,’ ” she said, referring to the probability of individual votes counting.

She generalized this effect to any election. “Your one vote doesn’t make a difference,” she said. “So why does anybody vote?”

“The magic ‘D’ term [is] ‘civic duty,’ ” she answered.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

Harris-Lacewell has been a regular contributor on National Public Radio and wrote the award-winning book “Barbershops, Bibles, and BET: Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought.”