Call It Democracy

Description: CALL IT DEMOCRACY takes a serious look at the history of Presidential elections and the Electoral College. Unlike films which wonder "why," CALL IT DEMOCRACY presents historical and non-partisan analysis of both the 2000 and 2004 Presidential elections and tells amazing stories such as the 1960 Kennedy v. Nixon recounts, the attempts by Segregationist Third Party Candidate George Wallace to manipulate the Electoral College in 1968, and President Ford's consideration about whether he should overturn the election results in close states. Those and other elections prior to the 20th century show that "one man one vote" is not always a guarantee if the other party is in power. The film features interviews with Senator Birch Bayh, author of two constitutional Amendments (the only American to do so since the Founding Fathers), prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, Prof. Alan Dershowitz, Federal Judge Richard A. Posner, Mary Frances Berry, Chairperson of the US Commission on Civil Rights, Rep. John Conyers, and Rep. Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. In a sweeping study of how elections are controlled by local election administrators, Call it Democracy argues that the Electoral College directly impacted 2002's Help America Vote Act which tried to eliminate punch card ballots but brought us electronic voting.