THE POPCORN REEL FILM REVIEW/"Free For All"
Voter Suppression: In Ohio, Where Politics
Matters, The Fix Is In, And He's Had Enough
By
Omar P.L. Moore/July 3,
2008
John Wellington Ennis takes on the Ohio question in his investigative
documentary "Free For All!", a richly-researched expose on the axiom in American
politics that says "as Ohio goes, so goes the nation." Mr. Ennis succeeds
here on all counts; his documentary is a satire, a probing examination of the
chicanery of Republican political operatives and private voting machine
companies in Florida in 2000 (Sec. of State Katherine Harris and Data Base
Technologies) and Ohio 2004 (its Sec. of State Ken Blackwell and Diebold, whose
then-CEO said in 2003 that he was committed to delivering the electoral votes in
Ohio to the president); but most importantly, Mr. Ennis' film is a call to
action for viewers and would-be voters in this year's U.S. presidential
election. "Free For All!", a somewhat misleading title to this reviewer --
it could have been called Stop The Vote -- opens tomorrow, July 4, exactly four
months before November's presidential election, exclusively at
www.freeforall.tv.
It is a must-see.
Mr. Ennis dons the mantle of Ordinary Joe, a Los Angeles resident who is seen
with t-shirts humorously proclaiming that he survived the Y2K scare and that
"Martha (Stewart) is a Felon". He travels to the American midwest state of
Ohio, considered the crucible of politics in presidential elections -- no
Republican has ever won the White House without winning Ohio -- and finds a lot
of troubling facts about the 2004 election between George W. Bush and John F.
Kerry (who by the way are distant cousins belonging to the same secret
fraternity - Skull And Bones), especially about exit polls, the most reliable
form of polling (provided voters are telling the truth as they exit the voting
booth) and Mr. Blackwell's conflict of interest being the co-chair of Mr. Bush's
2004 presidential election campaign in addition to being Ohio's top political
official after its governor. (The conflict of interest echoed that of Ms.
Harris re: Bush in Florida in 2000. Ms. Harris went on to win a seat in
Congress and later was thumped in a campaign for the U.S. Senate.)
Lest he be accused of partisanship to Democrats, Mr. Ennis, who declares himself
an independent voter, alludes to the episode of 1960, citing Chicago mayor
Richard Daley's role in helping manufacture an electoral win for Democratic
presidential candidate John F. Kennedy in 1960 over Richard Nixon, in an
election contest that separated them by about 100,000 votes. Mr. Ennis,
who also wrote and produced "Free For All!", adds that voting machine fraud has
been a fact of life throughout American history. "Free For All!" also
takes a significant look at the crucial Ohio governor's election in 2006 between
Mr. Blackwell and Democrat Ted Strickland (who won thanks to very high turnout,
thereby overriding any attempts at voter manipulation and machine fraud.)
It is voter turnout, Mr. Ennis contends, that will again be a vital component in
deciding the outcome in this year's presidential election between Senators John
McCain and Barack Obama.
The central theme of the film is "What Is Truth?", a question Mr. Ennis asks
many including Mr. Blackwell himself, Jerry Springer (former mayor of
Cincinnati) before his current radio day job, famed linguist Noam Chomsky, Rev.
Jesse Jackson and even John Kerry. The film is painful at times as it
details the frustrations of voters and half-mile-long waiting lines in the
November rain in predominantly black voting precincts in Ohio four years ago,
some waiting for up to 10 hours in the rain before being told that the voting
booths were closed (in advance of close of the polls); the removal of voting
machines in precincts where the percentage of registered voters in black
neighborhoods had greatly increased; the "requirement" of ID to be produced
before voting; flyers and phone calling by bused-in Texas Republican operatives
to Democratic voters in Ohio telling them that for the Bush-Kerry election
(which was held on November 2, 2004) they were required to vote on November 3,
while Republican voters in the state were required to vote on November 2.
A lot of the information dispensed in "Free For All!" isn't new to those
familiar with the work of American journalist and muckraker Greg Palast, who
reports for the BBC and wrote the books The Best Democracy Can Buy and
Armed Madness, which detail a lot of what Mr. Ennis shows here.
Moreover, Ian Inaba's Sundance award-winning documentary "American Blackout"
most urgently demonstrated the voter suppression in Ohio and "Free For All!"
uses substantial footage from it in its second half. Mr. Ennis and Mr.
Inaba combine efforts to form the organization Video The Vote, which gives power
to ordinary citizens by exhorting them to videotape proceedings at voting booths
for general elections (and other elections) in the U.S. as unobtrusively as
possible to monitor and prevent voter intimidation and irregularities. Mr.
Ennis contends that voter suppression was key to the results that betrayed what
numerous Internet bloggers had published from state exit polls as Kerry
victories in 2004. (The mainstream press, said Mr. Ennis, poo-pooed the
notion that Kerry won as "theory", pointing to a New York Times article on
this.)
On the film's website Mr. Ennis declares that
"the 2008 election has already been stolen (italics Mr. Ennis's): it's up
to us to swipe it back." Mr. Ennis' film stands firmly on its own despite
the dire yet important subject matter, contains significant facts and
documentation, with a thoroughly humorous and entertaining backbone. (Mr.
Ennis even dances and uses a cartoon chad in an episode reminiscent of the
animated sequence in "Bowling For Columbine".) "Free For All!" encourages
action and activism, and is most at home in its determination that for 2008,
voters, to use a refrain from the British rock band The Who, "won't get fooled
again."
"Free For All!" will show exclusively at
www.freeforall.tv
beginning tomorrow. The film more than deserves a theatrical release.
Its duration is one hour and 32 minutes.
Copyright The Popcorn Reel. PopcornReel.com. 2008. All Rights
Reserved.