
American Blackout
Voter suppression takes center stage in this account of the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, built around the story of Georgia congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and the Black voters whose ballots went uncounted. The film revisits Florida's disputed recount, where thousands of African American voters were purged from rolls or turned away at polling places, and follows McKinney's fight against attacks on her own political career after she raised questions about the Bush administration. Interviews with voters, activists, and officials lay out how flawed voter-list purges, faulty machines, and long lines in Black precincts shaped outcomes in both elections. Archival news footage and campaign clips trace the mechanics of how ballots disappear from the count without ever being technically illegal. The film treats disenfranchisement as a systemic pattern rather than isolated error, tracking it from county election offices in Florida to precincts in Ohio. It closes on McKinney's defeat in her own primary, framed as a coda to the larger argument about who gets to have a vote that counts.