{"id":40,"date":"2016-05-01T05:03:26","date_gmt":"2016-05-01T05:03:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rmwhittaker.com\/?p=40"},"modified":"2016-04-26T05:05:03","modified_gmt":"2016-04-26T05:05:03","slug":"review-election-day-2007","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rmwhittaker.com\/index.php\/2016\/05\/01\/review-election-day-2007\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Election Day (2007)"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/b>\"election\"<\/a>Directed by Katy Chevigny<\/strong><\/p>\n

After the 2000 elections, a swathe of political documentaries painted a grim portrait of the democratic process. For anyone embittered about the whole poll thing, Election Day <\/i>takes a bittersweet snapshot of voting, American style. From the polls’ open to the final counts on Nov. 2, 2004, it shows the highs and lows of elections.
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Candidates are invisible and irrelevant to Chevigny’s documentary; instead, she looks at voters, election workers, and block activists in precincts around the nation. She finds a flawed, sometimes inept, even farcical system. Yet somehow, there’s still an electorate committed to the democratic ideal it stumblingly represents.<\/p>\n

Whether it’s the Republican activist in Chicago, running a doomed get-out-the-vote campaign in a Democrat stronghold; or the frustrated wannabe-voter in Cleveland waiting two hours to cast her ballot, Chevigny finds people who believe their vote can still make a difference. What is tragic is how many she finds that are disenfranchised by law, excluded by accident, or disenchanted with the whole process.<\/p>\n