Michael Moore pulls out of Florida

November 2, 2004

Minutes after polls closed in Florida, filmmaker Michael Moore packed his bags and wrapped up a large-scale effort to aim a “huge spotlight” on suspected dirty tricks at the polls in the battleground state.

His departure is being interpreted as a positive comment on the smooth election process in the state that saw scattered, but mild glitches amid an “amazing” record turnout, reports WPLG.

As WorldNetDaily reported, the director of “Fahrenheit 9/11” descended on Florida with video cameras rolling declaring he would prevent the Bush administration from “stealing a second election.”

“Make no mistake about it. I will be there, I will have my cameras there. We will put a huge spotlight on them. They will not get away with it this time,” Moore said in a statement in August announcing his intentions.

Michael Moore (courtesy United Artists)

The director claims the 2000 vote count was tainted despite numerous recounts in Democrat-supervised counties which gave Bush a 537-vote victory, providing him with the needed electoral votes to win the presidency over Al Gore, who won the national popular vote.

Moore planned to station 1,200 professional and amateur videographers at contentious polling sites in both Florida and Ohio.

“I’m putting those who intend to suppress the vote on notice: voter intimidation and suppression will not be tolerated,” said Moore.

In South Florida, the scene of the recount controversies during the 2000 election, all 777 precincts in Broward County opened on time and Miami-Dade County election officials said they “couldn’t be happier” with the way the voting process went all day, according to WPLG.

In Palm Beach County where ATM-style voting machines replaced the controversial “butterfly ” punchcard ballot, one major snafu was reported when nine of the machines’ batteries wore down in Boyton Beach and 37 votes appear to have been lost, the Associated Press reports.

Minor problems experienced at some precincts stemmed from a widespread sabotage attempt. Voters in Charlotte, Marion, Palm Beach and Lee counties reported receiving crank calls falsely telling them their precincts had changed, according to the AP.

The unidentified callers directed voters to go to precincts much farther away than those listed in the newspaper by the county elections supervisors.

While Moore headed for Ohio with his camera crew, he allegedly left an “army of lawyers” behind in Florida. He vowed in August he would help pay for the attorneys who would spy on target precincts and be ready to go to court over suspected voting problems.