Now with a critical presidential election looming, UNCOUNTED will take the leap from grassroots organizing tool to mainstream wake-up call with a timely convergence of events that will expose its message to wider audience.

First, premium movie service provider Starz will present the world television premiere of UNCOUNTED on Starz Edge, Monday, August 25 at 10:30 p.m. (et/pt), and Starz Cinema on Thursday, August 28 at 10:00 P.M.

“As this is one of the most important elections in our nation’s history, premiering this thought-provoking documentary is not only timely, but necessary viewing.”

– Nancy Silverstone, Vice President of Program Acquisitions at Starz Entertainment.

Next, the distribution company, Disinformation, will release the documentary to retail outlets, including Amazon.com and Netflix, on Tuesday, August 26.

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Washington, DC rally protesting 2004 Ohio presidential election results (Photo: EON - Ecological Options Network)

“Disinformation has become known as the home of the political documentary and we’ve screened many films about voting but didn’t find any that were compelling enough to attract and influence a wide audience. UNCOUNTED totally changed my perception of how effective a film about our dysfunctional election system could be. Our goal is to expose UNCOUNTED to as many Americans as possible before the presidential election so that the people can demand – and get – fair and honest elections.”

– Gary Baddeley, CEO of The Disinformation Company

UNCOUNTED also travels to the epicenter of the country’s political activity to screen at the prestigious American Film Institute Silver Theatre and Cultural Center in Silver Spring, Maryland, on Tuesday, September 9, at 7:00 PM. The AFI screening will feature a post-film panel discussion moderated by veteran broadcast journalist Bob Edwards, host of XMPR Satellite Radio’s “The Bob Edwards Show.” Panel members will include, Mimi Kennedy, Board Chair for Progressive Democrats of America, Rev. DeForest Soaries, former Chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, and others.

UNCOUNTED will continue to spread its message until the November election with screenings and panel discussions all over the country, including a stop in Los Angeles, San Diego and Mission Valley. The LA panel discussion will feature Earnhardt, journalist Brad Friedman of BradBlog.com, Diebold-whistleblower Steve Heller, and Heller’s lawyer, Blair Berk. The San Diego panel will feature Earnhardt and Friedman.

Filmmaker David Earnhardt with Rep. John Conyers, who chaired the House Judiciary Committee investigation into 2004 election irregularities (Photo: Earnhardt Pirkle, Inc.)

The movie has also made inroads into the international community, selling DVDs through the web site and screening in more than 20 countries. Clarksville Online, the only press to cover the world premiere of UNCOUNTED in Nashville last year, teamed up with the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Clarksville to sponsor a screening of UNCOUNTED in December, 2007.

“The response internationally to UNCOUNTED has been better than expected,” said Cassie Yde, president, Television Syndication Company, “We’ve come to find out that other countries are vitally interested in our elections and the election process. UNCOUNTED is a great complement to election programming.”

“Our country has a long and varied history of stolen elections, systematic disenfranchisement, and manufactured election irregularities. Yet most of us still accept on faith the integrity of the election process. I hope that watching UNCOUNTED so close to the presidential election will expose our film and this critical issue to a whole new audience, shake to the core preconceived beliefs, and encourage immediate action before it’s too late.”

–David Earnhardt

NASHVILLE, TN (8.6.08) – In a statement about the fragile state of our electoral system, Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., singled out Nashville-based filmmaker David Earnhardt’s election integrity documentary, UNCOUNTED: The New Math of American Elections, saying that it offered “warnings about the fragile state of our electoral system” and “evidence of how voting machines themselves can create problems.”

UnCounted made its premiere in November, 2007, to a standing room only crowd at Nashville’s Belcourt Theater, where Clarksville Online was the only media present to cover the event. Clarksville Online and the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in December, 2007, teamed up with Uncounted producers David and Patricia Earnhardt to co-sponsor an equally packed screening of this film in Clarksville.

UnCounted details the issues of the past several elections, examining both the broader scope of problems with electronic voting and the focusing that same lens on a number of the most controversial problems including malfunctioning or potentially manipulated voting machines, the lack of verifiable voting (the paper ‘trail’), and an insufficient number of machines at a number of polls.

In his statement, Congressman Jackson held up Michigan and Tennessee, states that will hold their primary elections this week, as examples where people go to the polls without having an explicit right to vote.

“The affirmative right to vote is not in the Constitution. Until we put it there we will continue to have presidents selected by the Supreme Court, partisan officials crafting rules in their favor, and voters disenfranchised by political games or plain old sloppiness. The Advancement Project report details a dizzying array of Election Day meltdowns, and in Uncounted there’s evidence of how voting machines themselves can create problems. Without the constitutionally-protected right to vote, we don’t have the power to make sure that every vote is counted in a complete, fair and efficient manner.”

– Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr.

“Every Congress since 2001, I’ve introduced House Joint Resolution 28 (H.J. Res. 28), legislation calling for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution granting everyone the affirmative right to vote. It’s time to scrap the states’ rights-based system we have now, and place the right to vote alongside the constitutionally-protected right to free speech. Voting gives you the political power to protect all of your other rights. That power is the bedrock of our democracy. It should not be left to political whims, economic downturns and disenfranchising procedures,” said Jackson.