J. Paul Getty Kidnapping of grandson John Paul Getty III When was his grandson kidnapped? On July 10, 1973, Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? demanded by telephone a $17 million payment Where was he when he kidnapped? in Rome, 'Ndrangheta What was he doing in rome? "the family suspected a ploy by the rebellious teenager to extract money from his miserly grandfather. Was the ransom paid? Getty senior agreed to pay no more than $2.2 million What happened after the money was paid? Paul III was found alive in a Lauria filling station,
Did he recount what happened?
Did John Paul Getty III recount what happened in regards to his kidnapping?
On July 10, 1973, in Rome, 'Ndrangheta kidnappers abducted Getty's 16-year-old grandson, John Paul Getty III, and demanded by telephone a $17 million payment (approximately $93.7 million in 2017) for the young man's safe return. However, "the family suspected a ploy by the rebellious teenager to extract money from his miserly grandfather." John Paul Getty Jr. asked his father for the money, but was refused.  In November 1973, an envelope containing a lock of hair and a human ear arrived at a daily newspaper. The second demand had been delayed three weeks by an Italian postal strike. The demand threatened that Paul would be further mutilated unless the victims paid $3.2 million (approximately $17.6 million in 2017): "This is Paul's ear. If we don't get some money within 10 days, then the other ear will arrive. In other words, he will arrive in little bits."  When the kidnappers finally reduced their demands to $3 million (approximately $16.5 million in 2017), Getty senior agreed to pay no more than $2.2 million (approximately $12.1 million in 2017) - the maximum that would be tax-deductible. He lent his son the remaining $800,000 (approximately $4.4 million in 2017) at 4% interest. Paul III was found alive in a Lauria filling station, in the province of Potenza, shortly after the ransom was paid. After his release Paul III called his grandfather to thank him for paying the ransom but, it is claimed, Getty refused to come to the phone. Nine people associated with 'Ndrangheta were later arrested for the kidnapping, but only two were convicted. Paul III was permanently affected by the trauma and became a drug addict. After a stroke brought on by a cocktail of drugs and alcohol in 1981, Paul III was rendered speechless, nearly blind and partially paralyzed for the rest of his life. He died 30 years later on February 5, 2011, at the age of 54.  Getty defended his initial refusal to pay the ransom on two points. First, he argued that to submit to the kidnappers' demands would immediately place his other fourteen grandchildren at the risk of copy-cat kidnappers. He added:  The second reason for my refusal was much broader-based. I contend that acceding to the demands of criminals and terrorists merely guarantees the continuing increase and spread of lawlessness, violence and such outrages as terror-bombings, "skyjackings" and the slaughter of hostages that plague our present-day world. (Getty, 1976, p. 139). CANNOTANSWER
Paul III was permanently affected by the trauma and became a drug addict.
Jean Paul Getty Sr. (; December 15, 1892 – June 6, 1976) was an American-born British petroleum industrialist who founded the Getty Oil Company in 1942 and was the patriarch of the Getty family. A native of Minneapolis, he was the son of pioneer oilman George Getty. In 1957, Fortune magazine named him the richest living American, while the 1966 Guinness Book of Records named him as the world's richest private citizen, worth an estimated $1.2 billion (approximately $ billion in ). At his death, he was worth more than $6 billion (approximately $ billion in ). A book published in 1996 ranked him as the 67th richest American who ever lived, based on his wealth as a percentage of the concurrent gross national product.

Despite his vast wealth, Getty was famously frugal, notably negotiating his grandson's kidnapping ransom in 1973. He had five children and divorced five times. Getty was an avid collector of art and antiquities. His collection formed the basis of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles; more than $661 million of his estate was left to the museum after his death. He established the J. Paul Getty Trust in 1953. The trust, which is the world's wealthiest art institution, operates the J. Paul Getty Museum Complexes: the Getty Center, the Getty Villa and the Getty Foundation, the Getty Research Institute, as well as the Getty Conservation Institute.

Early life and education
Getty was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Sarah Catherine McPherson (Risher) and George Getty, who was an attorney in the insurance industry. Getty was raised as a Methodist by his parents. His father was a devout Christian Scientist and both were strict teetotalers. He was of part Scottish descent. In 1903, when Getty was 10 years old, George Getty traveled to Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and bought the mineral rights for 1,100 acres of land. The Getty family subsequently moved to Bartlesville, where J. Paul Getty attended the Garfield School. Within a few years Getty had established wells on the land that were producing 100,000 barrels of crude oil a month.

As newly minted millionaires, the family moved to Los Angeles. But, J. Paul Getty later returned to Oklahoma. At age 14, Getty attended Harvard Military School for a year, followed by Polytechnic High School, where he was given the nickname "Dictionary Getty" because of his love of reading. He became fluent in French, German and Italian. Getty was also conversational in Spanish, Greek, Arabic and Russian. A love of the classics led Getty to acquire reading proficiency in Ancient Greek and Latin.

He enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, but did not complete a degree. Enamored with Europe after traveling abroad with his parents in 1910, Getty enrolled at the University of Oxford on November 28, 1912. A letter of introduction by then-President of the United States William Howard Taft enabled him to gain independent instruction from tutors at Magdalen College. Although he was not registered at Magdalen, he claimed the aristocratic students "accepted me as one of their own" and he fondly boasted of the friends he made, including Edward VIII, the future King of the United Kingdom. He obtained a diploma in economics and political science from Oxford in June 1913, then spent months traveling throughout Europe and Egypt before meeting his parents in Paris and returning with them to America in June 1914.

Career
In the autumn of 1914, George Getty gave his son $10,000 to invest in expanding the family's oil field holdings in Oklahoma. The first lot he bought, the Nancy Taylor No. 1 Oil Well Site near Haskell, Oklahoma was crucial to his early financial success. The well struck oil in August 1915 and by the next summer the 40 percent net production royalty he accrued from it had made him a millionaire.

In 1919, Getty returned to business in Oklahoma. During the 1920s, he added about $3 million to his already sizable estate. His succession of marriages and divorces so distressed his father that Getty inherited only $500,000 of the $10 million fortune his father left at the time of his death in 1930. Getty was left with one-third of the stock from George Getty Inc., while his mother received the remaining two-thirds, giving her a controlling interest.

In 1936, Getty's mother convinced him to contribute to the establishment of a $3.3 million investment trust, called the Sarah C. Getty Trust, to ensure the family's ever-growing wealth could be channeled into a tax-free, secure income for future generations of the Getty family. The trust enabled Getty to have easy access to ready capital, which he was funneling into the purchase of Tidewater Petroleum stock.

Shrewdly investing his resources during the Great Depression, Getty acquired Pacific Western Oil Corporation and began the acquisition (completed in 1953) of the Mission Corporation, which included Tidewater Oil and Skelly Oil. In 1967, Getty merged these holdings into Getty Oil.

In 1948–1949, Getty paid Ibn Saud $9.5 million in cash, guaranteed $1 million a year, and a royalty of 55 cents a barrel for the Saudi Arabian Neutral Zone concession.  Oil was finally discovered in March 1953. Since 1953, Getty's gamble produced 16 million barrels a year, which contributed greatly to the fortune responsible for making him one of the richest people in the world.

Getty's wealth and ability to speak Arabic enabled his unparalleled expansion into the Middle East. Getty owned the controlling interest in about 200 businesses, including Getty Oil. Getty owned Getty Oil, Getty Inc., George F. Getty Inc., Pacific Western Oil Corporation, Mission Corporation, Mission Development Company, Tidewater Oil, Skelly Oil, Mexican Seaboard Oil, Petroleum Corporation of America, Spartan Aircraft Company, Spartan Cafeteria Company, Minnehoma Insurance Company, Minnehoma Financial Company, Pierre Hotel, Pierre Marques Hotel, a 15th-century palace and nearby castle at Ladispoli on the coast northwest of Rome, a Malibu ranch home, and Sutton Place, a 72-room mansion near Guildford, Surrey.

Art collection
Getty's first forays into collecting began in the late 1930s, when he took inspiration from the collection of 18th-century French paintings and furniture owned by the landlord of his New York City penthouse, Amy Guest, a relation of Sir Winston Churchill. A fan of 18th-century France, Getty began buying furniture from the period at reduced prices because of the depressed art market. He wrote several books on collecting, including Europe and the 18th Century (1949), Collector's Choice: The Chronicle of an Artistic Odyssey through Europe (1955) and The Joys of Collecting (1965). His stinginess limited the range of his collecting because he refused to pay full price. Getty's companion in later life, Penelope Kitson, said "Paul was really too mean ever to allow himself to buy a great painting." Nonetheless, at the time of his death he owned more than 600 items valued at more than $4 million, including paintings by Rubens, Titian, Gainsborough, Renoir, Tintoretto, Degas, and Monet. During the 1950s, Getty's interests shifted to Greco-Roman sculpture, which led to the building of the Getty Villa in the 1970s to house the collection. These items were transferred to the Getty Museum and the Getty Villa in Los Angeles after his death.

Marriages, divorces and children
Getty was a notorious womanizer from the time of his youth, something that horrified his conservative Christian parents. His lawyer, Robin Lund, once said that, "Paul could hardly ever say 'no' to a woman, or 'yes' to a man." Lord Beaverbrook had called him "Priapic" and "ever-ready" in his sexual habits.

In 1917, when he was 25, a paternity suit was filed against Getty in Los Angeles by Elsie Eckstrom, who claimed he was the father of her daughter, Paula. Eckstrom claimed that Getty had taken her virginity and fathered the child, while his legal team tried to undermine her credibility by claiming that she had a history of promiscuity. Getty agreed to a settlement of $10,000, upon which Eckstrom left town with the baby.

Getty was married and divorced five times. He had five sons with four of his wives:
 Jeanette Demont (married 1923 – divorced 1926); one son, George F. Getty II (1924–1973).
 Allene Ashby (1926–1928); no children. Getty met 17-year-old Ashby, the daughter of a Texas rancher, in Mexico City while he was studying Spanish and overseeing his family's business interests. They eloped to Cuernavaca, Mexico, but the marriage was bigamous as he was not yet divorced from Jeanette. The two quickly decided to dissolve the union while still in Mexico.
 Adolphine Helmle (1928–1932); one son, Jean Ronald Getty (1929–2009), whose son, Christopher Ronald Getty, married Pia Miller, sister of Marie-Chantal, Crown Princess of Greece. Like his first and second wives, Adolphine was 17 years old when Getty met her in Vienna. She was the daughter of a prominent German doctor who was opposed to her marrying the twice-divorced, 36-year-old Getty. The two eloped to Cuernavaca, where he had married Allene Ashby, then settled in Los Angeles. Following the birth of their son, Getty lost interest in her and her father convinced her to return to Germany with their child in 1929. After a protracted and contentious battle, their divorce was finalized in August 1932, with Adolphine receiving a huge sum for punitive damages and full custody of Ronald.
 Ann Rork (1932–1936); two sons, John Paul Getty Jr. (1932–2003) and Gordon Peter Getty (born 1933). Getty was introduced to Rork when she was 14 years old, but she did not become his romantic partner until she was 21 in 1930. Because he was in the midst of his divorce from Adolphine, the couple had to wait two years before they married. He was largely absent during their marriage, staying for long stretches of time in Europe. She sued him for divorce in 1936 alleging emotional abuse and neglect. She described an incident while the two were abroad in Italy in which she claimed Getty forced her to climb to view the crater of Mount Vesuvius while she was pregnant with their first son. The court decided in her favor and she was awarded $2,500 per month alimony plus $1,000 each in child support for her sons.
 Louise Dudley "Teddy" Lynch (1939–1958); one son, Timothy Ware Getty (1946–1958).

In 2013 at age 99, Getty's fifth wife, Louise, known as Teddy Getty Gaston, published a memoir reporting how Getty had scolded her for spending money too freely in the 1950s on the treatment of their six-year-old son, Timmy, who had become blind from a brain tumor. Timmy died at age 12, and Getty, living in England apart from his family who were in the U.S., did not attend the funeral. Gaston divorced Getty that year. Teddy Gaston died in April 2017 at the age of 103.

Getty was quoted as saying "A lasting relationship with a woman is only possible if you are a business failure," and, "I hate to be a failure. I hate and regret the failure of my marriages. I would gladly give all my millions for just one lasting marital success."

Kidnapping of grandson John Paul Getty III

In Rome on July 10, 1973, 'Ndrangheta kidnappers abducted Getty's 16-year-old grandson, John Paul Getty III, and demanded a $17 million (equivalent to $ in ) payment for his safe return. However, the family suspected a ploy by the rebellious teenager to extract money from his miserly grandfather. John Paul Getty Jr. asked his father for the money, but was refused, arguing that his 13 other grandchildren could also become kidnap targets if he paid.

In November 1973, an envelope containing a lock of hair and a human ear arrived at a daily newspaper. The second demand had been delayed three weeks by an Italian postal strike. The demand threatened that Paul would be further mutilated unless the victims paid $3.2 million. The demand stated "This is Paul's ear. If we don't get some money within 10 days, then the other ear will arrive. In other words, he will arrive in little bits."

When the kidnappers finally reduced their demands to $3 million, Getty agreed to pay no more than $2.2 million (equivalent to $ in ), the maximum that would be tax-deductible. He lent his son the remaining $800,000 at four percent interest. Getty's grandson was found alive on December 15, 1973, in a Lauria filling station, in the province of Potenza, shortly after the ransom was paid. After his release, the younger Getty called his grandfather to thank him for paying the ransom but Getty refused to come to the phone. Nine people associated with 'Ndrangheta were later arrested for the kidnapping, but only two were convicted. Getty III was permanently affected by the trauma and became a drug addict. After a stroke, brought on by a cocktail of drugs and alcohol in 1981, Getty III was rendered speechless, nearly blind and partially paralyzed for the rest of his life. He died on February 5, 2011, at the age of 54.

Getty defended his initial refusal to pay the ransom on two points. He argued that his 13 other grandchildren could also become kidnap targets if he paid, and also stated, "The second reason for my refusal was much broader-based. I contend that acceding to the demands of criminals and terrorists merely guarantees the continuing increase and spread of lawlessness, violence and such outrages as terror-bombings, "skyjackings" and the slaughter of hostages that plague our present-day world."

Nine of the kidnappers were apprehended, including Girolamo Piromalli and Saverio Mammoliti, high-ranking members of the 'Ndrangheta, a Mafia organization in Calabria. Two of the kidnappers were convicted and sent to prison; the others were acquitted for lack of evidence, including the 'Ndrangheta bosses. Most of the ransom money was never recovered.

Reputation for frugality
Many anecdotal stories exist of Getty's reputed thriftiness and parsimony, which struck observers as comical, even perverse, because of his extreme wealth. The two most widely known examples are his reluctance to pay his grandson's $17 million kidnapping ransom, and a notorious pay-phone he had installed at Sutton Place. A darker incident was his fifth wife's claim that Getty had scolded her for spending too much on their terminally ill son's medical treatment, though he was worth tens of millions of dollars at the time. He was well known for bargaining on almost everything to obtain the lowest possible price, including suites at luxury hotels and virtually all purchases of artwork and real estate. In 1959, Sutton Place, a 72-room mansion, was purchased from George Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 5th Duke of Sutherland, for £60,000, about half of what the Duke paid for it 40 years earlier.

Getty's secretary claimed that Getty did his laundry by hand because he didn't want to pay for his clothes to be laundered. When his shirts became frayed at the cuffs, he would trim the frayed part instead of purchasing new shirts.
Re-using stationery was another obsession of Getty's. He had a habit of writing responses to letters on the margins or back sides and mailing them back, rather than using a new sheet of paper. He also carefully saved and re-used manila envelopes, rubber bands and other office supplies.
When Getty took a group of friends to a dog show in London, he made them walk around the block for 10 minutes until the tickets became half-priced at 5 pm, because he didn't want to pay the full 5 shillings per head.
Getty moved to Sutton Place in part because the cost of living was cheaper than in London, where he had resided at the Ritz. He once boasted to American columnist Art Buchwald that it cost 10 cents for a rum and coke at Sutton Place, whereas at the Ritz it was more than a dollar.

Author John Pearson attributed part of Getty's extreme penny-pinching to the Methodist sensibility of Getty's upbringing, which emphasized modest living and personal economy. His business acumen was also a major factor in Getty's thriftiness. "He would allow himself no self-indulgence in the purchase of a place to live, a work of art, even a piece of furniture, unless he could convince himself that it would appreciate in value."
 Getty claimed his frugality towards others was a response to people taking advantage of him and not paying their fair share. "It's not the money I object to, it's the principle of the thing that bothers me ..."

Coin-box telephone
Getty famously had a payphone installed at Sutton Place, helping to seal his reputation as a miser. Getty placed dial-locks on all the regular telephones, limiting their use to authorized staff, and the coin-box telephone was installed for others. In his autobiography, he described his reasons:

When speaking in a televised interview with Alan Whicker in February 1963, Getty said that he thought guests would want to use a payphone. After 18 months, Getty explained, "the in-and-out traffic flow at Sutton subsided. Management and operation of the house settled into a reasonable routine. With that, the pay-telephone [was] removed, and the dial-locks were taken off the telephones in the house."

Later years and death
On June 30, 1960, Getty threw a 21st birthday party for a relative of his friend, the 16th Duke of Norfolk, which served as a housewarming party for the newly purchased Sutton Place. Party goers were irritated by Getty's stinginess, such as not providing cigarettes and relegating everyone to using creosote portable toilets outside. At about 10 p.m. the party descended into pandemonium as party crashers arrived from London, swelling the already overcrowded halls and causing an estimated £20,000 in damage. A valuable silver ewer by the 18th century silversmith Paul de Lamerie was stolen, but returned anonymously when the London newspapers began covering the theft. The failure of the event made Getty the object of ridicule and he never threw another large party again.

Getty remained an inveterate hard worker, boasting at age 74 that he often worked 16 to 18 hours per day overseeing his operations across the world. The value of Getty Oil shares quadrupled during the Arab-Israeli Yom Kippur War of October 1973, which caused a worldwide oil shortage for years. Getty's earnings topped $25.8 million in 1975.

Getty's insatiable appetite for sex also continued into his 80s. He used an experimental drug, H3, to maintain his potency. Getty met the English interior designer Penelope Kitson in the 1950s and entrusted her with decorating his homes and the public rooms of the oil tankers he was launching. From 1960, Kitson resided in a cottage on the grounds of Sutton Place. Getty and Kitson maintained a platonic relationship and Getty held her in high respect and trust. Other mistresses who resided at Sutton Place included the married Mary Teissier, a distant cousin of the last Tsar of Russia, Lady Ursula d'Abo, who had close connections to the British Royal Family, and Nicaraguan-born Rosabella Burch.

The New York Times wrote of Getty's domestic arrangement: "[Getty] ended his life with a collection of desperately hopeful women, all living together in his Tudor mansion in England, none of them aware that his favorite pastime was rewriting his will, changing his insultingly small bequests: $209 a month to one, $1,167 to another." Only Kitson received a significant bequest upon Getty's death, receiving 5,000 shares of Getty Oil, which doubled in value during the 1980s, and a $1,167 monthly income.

Getty died of heart failure at the age of 83 on June 6, 1976, in Sutton Place near Guildford, Surrey. He was buried in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles County, California at the Getty Villa. The gravesite is not open to the public.

Media portrayals
Christopher Plummer portrayed Getty in the 2017 film All the Money in the World, which dramatizes the kidnapping of his grandson. Getty was originally portrayed by Kevin Spacey, but after sexual misconduct allegations surfaced against Spacey ahead of the film's premiere, Plummer was cast to re-film his scenes. For his performance, Plummer received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

The kidnapping is also dramatized in the first season of the American anthology drama series Trust, where Getty is portrayed by Donald Sutherland.

Quotations
J. Paul Getty has one entry in the 8th Edition of The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.
“If you can actually count your money, then you are not really a rich man.”

Published works
 Getty, J. Paul. The history of the bigger oil business of George F.S. F. and J. Paul Getty from 1903 to 1939. Los Angeles?, 1941, 
 Getty, J. Paul. Europe in the Eighteenth Century. [Santa Monica, Calif.]: privately printed, 1949, 
 Le Vane, Ethel, and J. Paul Getty. Collector's Choice: The Chronicle of an Artistic Odyssey through Europe. London: W.H. Allen, 1955, 
 Getty, J. Paul. My Life and Fortunes. New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1963, 
 Getty, J. Paul. The Joys of Collecting. New York: Hawthorn Books, 1965, 
 Getty, J. Paul. How to be Rich. Chicago: Playboy Press, 1965, 
 Getty, J. Paul. The Golden Age. New York: Trident Press, 1968, 
 Getty, J. Paul. How to be a Successful Executive. Chicago: Playboy Press, 1971, 
 Getty, J. Paul. As I See It: The Autobiography of J. Paul Getty. Englewood Cliffs, N.J. : Prentice-Hall, 1976. ,

See also
 List of richest Americans in history
 List of wealthiest historical figures

References

Further reading
 Hewins, Ralph. The Richest American: J. Paul Getty. New York: Dutton, 1960.
 Lund, Robina. The Getty I Knew. Kansas City: Sheed Andrews and McMeel, 1977. .
 Miller, Russell. The House of Getty. New York: Henry Holt, 1985. .
 de Chair, Somerset Struben. Getty on Getty: a man in a billion. London: Cassell, 1989. .
 Pearson, John. Painfully Rich: J. Paul Getty and His Heirs. London: Macmillan, 1995. .
 Wooster, Martin Morse. Philanthropy Hall of Fame, J. Paul Getty. philanthropyroundtable.org.

External links

 J. Paul Getty diaries, 1938–1946, 1948–1976 finding aid, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. 
 J. Paul Getty family collected papers, 1880s–1989, undated (bulk 1911–1977) finding aid, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. 
J. Paul Getty and Ashby sisters papers, 1926-1992, finding aid, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles.

1892 births
1976 deaths
20th-century American businesspeople
Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford
American art collectors
American autobiographers
American business writers
American businesspeople in the oil industry
American billionaires
American emigrants to England
American people of Scotch-Irish descent
American philanthropists
Businesspeople from Los Angeles
Businesspeople from Minneapolis
Businesspeople from Tulsa, Oklahoma
English people of Irish descent
Museum founders
J. Paul
J
John H. Francis Polytechnic High School alumni
 
Philanthropists from California
University of California, Berkeley alumni
Recount is a 2008 political drama television film about Florida's vote recount during the 2000 United States presidential election. Written by Danny Strong and directed by Jay Roach, the television film stars Kevin Spacey, Bob Balaban, Ed Begley Jr., Laura Dern, John Hurt, Denis Leary, Bruce McGill, and Tom Wilkinson. It premiered on HBO on May 25, 2008. The television film won three Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Television Movie and Outstanding Directing for a Limited Series, Movie, or Dramatic Special for Roach, and a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film for Dern.

Plot
Recount chronicles the 2000 U.S. presidential election Bush v. Gore case between Governor of Texas George W. Bush and U.S. Vice President Al Gore. It begins with the election on November 7 and ends with the Supreme Court ruling, which stopped the Florida election recount on December 12.

Key points depicted include: Gore's retraction of his personal telephone concession to Bush in the early hours of November 8; the decision by the Gore campaign to sue for hand recounts in Democratic strongholds where voting irregularities were alleged, especially in light of the statistical dead heat revealed by the reported machine recount; Republican pressure on Florida's Secretary of State Katherine Harris in light of her legally mandated responsibilities; the attention focused on the hand recounts by media, parties, and the public; the two major announcements by Florida Supreme Court spokesman Craig Waters extending the deadline for returns in the initial recount (November 21, 2000) and ordering a statewide recount of votes (December 8, 2000), and later overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court; and finally the adversarial postures of the Supreme Courts of Florida and the United States, as well as the dissenting opinions among the higher court's justices.

Production

Director
In April 2007, it was announced that Sydney Pollack would direct the film. By August, weeks away from the start of principal photography, Pollack withdrew from the project due to a then-undisclosed illness, and was replaced by Jay Roach. Pollack died of cancer on May 26, 2008, one day after Recount premiered on HBO.

Casting
On September 24, 2007, it was announced that Kevin Spacey would star as Ron Klain.

Filming
Recount was shot in Jacksonville and Tallahassee, Florida.

Cast

Reception

Awards and nominations
2008 Emmy Awards:
Won: Outstanding Made for Television Movie
Won: Outstanding Directing for a Miniseries, Movie, or Dramatic Special (Jay Roach)
Won: Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Miniseries or Movie
Nominated: Outstanding Art Direction for a Miniseries or Movie
Nominated: Outstanding Casting for a Miniseries, Movie, or Special
Nominated: Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Movie (Kevin Spacey and Tom Wilkinson)
Nominated: Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or Movie (Bob Balaban and Denis Leary)
Nominated: Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie (Laura Dern) 
Nominated: Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries, Movie, or Dramatic Special

2009 66th Golden Globe Awards:Won: Laura Dern - Best Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television
Nominated: Denis Leary - Best Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television
Nominated: Tom Wilkinson - Best Actor in a Mini-Series or a Motion Picture Made for Television
Nominated: Kevin Spacey - Best Actor in a Mini-Series or a Motion Picture Made for Television
Nominated: Best Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television2009 Directors Guild of America Award:Won: Jay Roach - Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Movies for Television/Miniseries2009 Writers Guild of America Award:Won': Danny Strong - Best Writing in Long Form - Original

Reviews
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 78%, based on 18 reviews, and an average rating of 6.4/10. On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 66 out of 100, based on 25 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Mark Moorman of Het Parool, gave the film a rating of four stars on a scale of five, calling Recount an "amazing and funny reconstruction".

Response to fictionalization
Some critics have made charges of bias against the film. Entertainment Weekly wrote, "Recount may not be downright blue, but it's not as purply as it wants to appear. Despite its equal time approach, Recount is an underdog story, and thus a Democrat story."  Film critic Roger Ebert disputed claims of bias in his review of the film, stating, "You might assume the movie is pro-Gore and anti-Bush, but you would not be quite right."

In an interview with CNN's Reliable Sources, director Jay Roach responded that the film, "wasn't 100 percent accurate, but it was very true to what went on. ... That's what dramatizations do: stitch together the big ideas with, sometimes, constructs that have to stand for a larger truth." Roach cited All the President's Men as an example. Jake Tapper, an ABC newscaster who was a consultant for the film also stated in response that the film is "a fictional version of what happened" and "tilts to the left because it's generally told from the point of view of the Democrats." The Washington Post further stated that Tapper noted that "while some scenes and language are manufactured, 'a lot of dialogue is not invented, a lot of dialogue is taken from my book, other books and real life.' " 

Florida Supreme Court spokesman Craig Waters agreed that the script departed from the actual statements he made on live television from the courthouse steps in the fall of 2000. "But the words spoken by the actor who played me [Alex Staggs]," Waters said, "are accurate paraphrasis of the things I actually said or of the documents released by the court at the time."

Warren Christopher, who was sent by Gore to supervise the recount, has objected to his portrayal in the film. According to the San Jose Mercury News, Christopher:  Baker agreed that the film exaggerated his rival's stance: "He's not that much of a wuss," said Matea Gold of the San Jose Mercury News''.

Democratic strategist Michael Whouley has objected to the amount of swearing he does in the film, and was also uncomfortable with a scene involving a broken chair.

In contrast, Bush legal advisers James Baker and Benjamin Ginsberg have largely given the film good reviews; Baker even hosted his own screening of it, though he does refer to the film as a "Hollywood rendition" of what happened.

Gallery

References

External links 
 
 
 

2008 television films
2008 films
2008 drama films
2000 United States presidential election in Florida
2000s English-language films
2000s political drama films
American films
American films based on actual events
American political drama films
Drama films based on actual events
Drama television films
Films about the 2000 United States presidential election
Films directed by Jay Roach
Films scored by Dave Grusin
Films shot in Jacksonville, Florida
Films with screenplays by Danny Strong
HBO Films films
Political films based on actual events
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Made for Television Movie winners
Television films based on actual events Following Republican nominee Donald Trump's presumed electoral college victory in the United States presidential election of 2016, a group of computer scientists, cyber security experts, and election monitors raised concerns about the integrity of the election results. They urged the campaign staff of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, who had conceded the campaign on November 9, to petition for a recount in three key states: Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. When the Clinton campaign declined to file for recounts, Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein agreed to spearhead the recount effort on November 23, on the grounds that unspecified "anomalies" may have affected the election's outcome. The Clinton team subsequently pledged to support the recount efforts "in order to ensure the process proceeds in a manner that is fair to all sides." President-elect Trump and his supporters filed legal motions in all three states to prevent the recounts. Two other states were the subject of recount bids that were separate from Stein's efforts in the Rust Belt states: American Delta Party/Reform Party presidential candidate Rocky De La Fuente filed for a partial recount in Nevada on November 30, and three Florida citizens filed for a complete hand recount in their state on December 6.

In accordance with the Electoral Count Act, all states must certify and submit their final election results to the electoral college six days before the college meets. Under this "safe harbor" provision, any recount efforts for the 2016 election had to be completed before the deadline of December 13, 2016. The recount in Nevada went forward and were completed on schedule, resulting in only minor changes to vote tallies. Wisconsin permitted individual counties to decide whether to provide paper ballots for recount or merely to rerun the same computer totals. A recount in Michigan was allowed to proceed for three days before being halted by court order, and a federal lawsuit to compel a recount in Pennsylvania was dismissed. While the partial Michigan recount did unearth some instances of improper ballot handling and possible voter fraud, no indications of widespread hacking were discovered, and the overall outcome of the election remained unchanged, despite the evidence that the voting machines were old and faulty, possibly counting as "blank" ballots many that contained visually clear indications of presidential choice.

Background
After the election, a group of prominent computer scientists and election lawyers including J. Alex Halderman, (director of the University of Michigan Center for Computer Security and Society) and John Bonifaz, (founder of the National Voting Rights Institute) began studying the election results and found statistical anomalies. For example, Clinton's votes were 7% lower than expected in counties that used electronic voting machines to tally votes, as opposed to using paper ballots and optical scan voting systems; in Wisconsin, there was a significant increase in the number of absentee ballots and Trump did far better than expected in counties that used only electronic voting; and there was a sizable increase in the number of ballots cast in Michigan that left the presidential field blank.

The 2016 presidential election was also unprecedented in that, as The Guardian reports:

 "The election had taken place against a backdrop of warnings from the US government that Russian hackers were "scanning and probing" the election systems of American states, and were behind the theft of emails from the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta, the chairman of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. Eight days before the election, the White House had used an emergency hotline to warn Russia against further interference."

The loose coalition of computer scientists and lawyers advocated for an election recount in three battleground states (Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan) where President-elect Trump had narrow victories of less than 1%. Trump won Michigan by 10,704 votes (0.2%), Pennsylvania by 49,543 (0.8%), and Wisconsin by 27,257 votes (0.7%). A shift of half of these from Trump to Clinton would mean Clinton would get enough electoral votes to win, and a shift in these states would constitute the smallest shift which would have this effect. In order to petition these states, a presidential candidate would need to file the recount request. Stein agreed to lead the effort after the group was unable to persuade the Clinton team to file.

While most experts agree that voter fraud and cyberattacks are possible, they disagree about the extent to which these could have impacted the results of the 2016 presidential election. Statistician Nate Silver performed a regression analysis which demonstrated that the alleged discrepancy between paper ballots and electronic voting machines "completely disappears once you control for race and education level". However, two Stanford University students named Rodolfo Cortes and Alex Geijsel, and a trio of statisticians who write for the website U.S. Economic Snapshot named Thomas Cooley, Ben Griffy and Peter Rupert also analyzed those claims and found that though demographics accounted for some of the vote total, there was still a significant correlation with voting machine use. On November 23, Halderman wrote,
 "I believe the most likely explanation is that the polls were systematically wrong, rather than that the election was hacked. But I don't believe that either one of these seemingly unlikely explanations is overwhelmingly more likely than the other."

Funding campaign and expenses

A funding campaign to cover the legal costs of the various recounts began on November 23, with an initial goal of $2.2 million to cover filing fees in Wisconsin. Donors quickly reached and surpassed that goal, which was subsequently raised to $4.5 million to cover filing fees in Pennsylvania. That was met on November 25, and the goal was raised a second time to $7 million for Michigan's filing fees. The goal was raised a third time to $9.5 million on November 28 after Wisconsin increased its filing fees. The total funds raised by the Stein campaign for the recounts eventually reached $7.33 million, with nearly 161,300 individual donors contributing in all.

Following the conclusion of the recount efforts, the Stein campaign claimed that costs for the recounts totaled $7.43 million, exceeding the amount that was raised. A published breakdown of expenditures showed that $212,500 was spent on staff payroll; $364,000 on consultants; $353,618 on administrative expenses such as travel costs; $3,499,689 on the filing fees in Wisconsin; $16,000 on the filing fees in Pennsylvania; $973,250 on the filing fees in Michigan; $1,630,200 on associated legal expenses; $150,000 on ongoing litigation as of December 13; and a final $150,000 on compliance costs.

Filings

Wisconsin

On November 25, 90 minutes before the deadline, Stein filed a petition to the Wisconsin Elections Commission for a recount of the state's votes. A request for a recount was also made by Independent presidential candidate Rocky De La Fuente. In Wisconsin, a recount would involve a manual examination of all three million ballots, with a completion deadline of December 13.

On November 26, the Clinton campaign's general counsel Marc Elias stated that their campaign would join Stein's recount efforts in Wisconsin and possibly others "in order to ensure the process proceeds in a manner that is fair to all sides." He also noted that, "Because we had not uncovered any actionable evidence of hacking or outside attempts to alter the voting technology, we had not planned to exercise this option ourselves."

On November 28, the Wisconsin Elections Commission rejected Stein's request for a hand recount of all votes, and Stein sought to overturn the decision in court. On November 29, after Stein paid $3.5 million needed to initiate a recount, the Wisconsin Elections Commission ordered a recount in the state to begin on December 1.

Several academics and specialists submitted testimony in support of Stein's lawsuit seeking a recount. Poorvi Vora of George Washington University stated that vote-scanning machinery could be infected with malware that changes the record of votes, and a manual count of paper ballots would be the only way to know if there had been vote manipulation. Professor Philip Stark from the University of California also claimed that Trump's winning margin in Wisconsin could easily be within the margin of error for optical voting systems. Despite this testimony, Dane County Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn refused to order a hand recount for the whole state, even though she encouraged them to recount by hand.

On December 2, a Trump Super PAC filed a federal lawsuit to halt the recount in Wisconsin arguing that it fails the United States Supreme Court's test for Equal Protection in the Florida election recount process established in Bush v. Gore. U.S. District Judge James Peterson denied the emergency halt to the recount, allowing the process to continue at least until a December 9 court hearing. At that hearing, Judge Petersen declined to halt the recount, noting that the process was nearly complete and there was virtually no chance that it would change the results of the election. While the lawsuit was not dismissed, Petersen said he would decide whether to do so within the next few days.

Wisconsin's recount was completed and its results certified early on December 12, well before the state-imposed 8:00pm deadline that same day. Clinton increased her vote total in the state by 713 votes, while Trump increased his by 844, widening his lead by 131 votes over the original November 8 count and reaffirming his victory there. Wisconsin Elections Commission Chairman Mark Thomsen stated that the recount had uncovered no evidence that any of the state's voting machines had been hacked or otherwise tampered with.

Pennsylvania

Stein announced on November 25 that she intended to file for similar recounts in Michigan and Pennsylvania. She did so in Pennsylvania on November 28, seven days after the official deadline of November 21, by applying to a court and asking them to order a recount.

On December 2, Trump and the Republican Party of Pennsylvania asked a court to dismiss the recount. They argued Pennsylvania law does not permit a court-ordered recount, and a Green Party lawyer acknowledged that the lawsuit was without precedent in the state.

On December 3, Stein and the Green Party formally withdrew their lawsuit seeking a statewide recount in Pennsylvania, stating that they were unable to produce the required $1 million bond before the court-ordered deadline at 5:00pm on December 5, which would have followed a court hearing earlier that day on whether to proceed with the case. The next day, December 4, an attorney representing the Green Party declared the Party's intent to file a lawsuit in a federal court to force Pennsylvania to carry out a recount, asserting that such a step was necessary because the state court system was ill-equipped to handle the matter.

Green Party lawyers filed the federal lawsuit on December 5, asserting that Pennsylvania's legal barriers to a recount amounted to a violation of voters' constitutional rights and a recount should be compelled. U.S. District Judge Paul S. Diamond scheduled a hearing on the lawsuit for December 9. During the hearing, lawyers for Stein presented testimony alleging that although poor polling was likely to blame for any deviations between election results and polls, the possibility of hacking could not be ruled out. A former Pennsylvania voting machine inspector testified on behalf of lawyers for the Republican Party that the situations put forward by Stein's experts were highly unlikely and lacked any supporting evidence. Judge Diamond himself expressed concerns that Pennsylvania's voters would be disenfranchised if the state's election results were not certified in time for the December 13 deadline due to a recount.

On December 12, Diamond rejected Stein and the Green Party's lawsuit, ending the recount effort in Pennsylvania and allowing the state to certify its original November 8 results.

Michigan

Stein filed for a manual recount in Michigan on November 30, paying the $973,250 fee required for filing. The recount policy in Michigan is to count every ballot manually. A manual count is required because the machines used to vote have no audit trail features.  According to Stein a recount in Michigan should have been pursued because of a "sky-high number of blank votes" for the presidency, since there were 87,810 ballots that were counted as not voting for president. Despite the money raised by Stein, Ruth Johnson, the Michigan Secretary of State, said that the recounting process might require up to $4 million of Michigan taxpayers' money.

On December 1, the Trump campaign challenged Michigan's recount arguing that the recount couldn't be finished on time and that Stein's petition wasn't properly notarized, delaying the planned recount which was to begin the next day. On December 2, with Michigan's Board of State Canvassers deadlocked 22, along party lines, the recount in Michigan was to proceed on December 6, barring court action, which Bill Schuette the Michigan Attorney General has requested.

Shortly after midnight on December 5, U.S. District Judge Mark A. Goldsmith ordered the recount in Michigan to begin at 12:00pm that day, bypassing a normally required waiting period of two days that would have caused the recount to begin on December 7. The timing of the recount had been the subject of a court hearing the previous day, in which lawyers representing Stein pushed for an immediate recount and lawyers for the Republican Party argued circumventing the waiting period was unnecessary. Michigan election officials began the recount as ordered.

On December 6, the Michigan Court of Appeals declared that Stein had no standing to seek a recount because she finished fourth in the election, garnering 1% of the vote, and therefore did not qualify as an "aggrieved" candidate under state law. The court ordered the state election board to reject Stein's recount petition. Attorney General Schuette stated the court's decision meant the ongoing recount "must stop", but an attorney representing Stein insisted the recount would continue. Judge Goldsmith, whose earlier ruling ordering the recount to begin had dealt with only the timing of the recount and not whether it should proceed, called a hearing for the morning of December 7 to address Schuette's request to set aside his ruling in light of the state court's decision. While Goldsmith deliberated after the hearing, the Michigan election board also met and decided to refrain from acting on the state court's ruling until Goldsmith had issued his new decision, and Stein appealed the state court's ruling to the Michigan Supreme Court. Goldsmith agreed to order the stoppage of the recount later that day, noting that while Stein's efforts had highlighted the vulnerability of Michigan's voting system to tampering, no evidence of such tampering had been presented, despite the evidence of Michigan's voting machines breaking down and not counting possibly over 87,000 votes for president that were not blank.

On December 9, the Michigan Supreme Court denied Jill Stein's appeal to restart the recount in a 3–2 ruling, permitting the original November 8 election results to be certified.

Prior to the halt of the recount, 3,047 precincts across 22 of Michigan's 83 counties had completed their recounts, which resulted in a net gain of 102 votes for Hillary Clinton. Additionally, 59 percent of precincts in Detroit were ineligible for recount, as the number of ballots stored in containers in case of a recount did not match tallies given by voting machine printout reports.

Nevada

On November 30, American Delta Party/Reform Party presidential candidate Rocky De La Fuente requested a recount in five counties in Nevada and paid the $14,000 fee required for the effort. These counties were Douglas, Mineral, Nye, and Clark, as well as the independent city of Carson City. De La Fuente called his recount request a counterbalance to the recount that Jill Stein sought in Wisconsin, and stated that while he did not expect to win Nevada, he was concerned about the integrity of the vote.

De La Fuente was entitled under state law to select a sample of 5% of Nevada's precincts to be recounted, totaling 93 precincts, but he selected only 92. If the results from the sample revealed a discrepancy of 1% or more in favor of either De La Fuente or Hillary Clinton, who won the state on election day, a full statewide recount would have been launched. As De La Fuente won only 202 votes across the precincts he selected for the recount, a deviation of as little as 3 votes would have triggered a statewide recount, though Secretary of State of Nevada Barbara Cegavske would have had discretion to determine if a recount was warranted.

The Nevada partial recount was completed on December 8. It resulted in no change in the number of votes cast for De La Fuente, but Clinton lost 9 votes and Trump lost 6 due to absentee ballot errors. The recount involved 93,840 ballots in total.

Florida

On December 6, three voters from central Florida, Leonisia Olivares, Jerry W. Lapidus, and Judith L. Craig, filed a lawsuit in Leon Circuit Court, calling for a hand recount of all Florida ballots to be conducted. The plaintiffs alleged that hacking, malfunctioning machines, and substantial voter fraud altered the results in the state of Florida in favor of Donald Trump, and asserted that Hillary Clinton would have won otherwise. They further insisted the recount be paid for by the defendants named in the lawsuit, who included Trump, Governor Rick Scott, and Florida's 29 presidential electors. An attorney representing the plaintiffs noted that each of the defendants had to respond to the lawsuit before it could go forward, however, and there was no guarantee all of them would do so before the electoral college met on December 19. The lawsuit was called a "long-shot", and by December 12, the day before the deadline for states to certify their election results, the Florida courts had not yet taken up the case. Leon Circuit Judge John Cooper eventually dismissed the suit, after which the plaintiffs appealed to the Florida First District Court of Appeal to overturn the dismissal, and requested that the electoral college's vote be postponed to allow the recount to be conducted. Judge Scott Makar struck down both motions, stating in his ruling that the lawsuit "is nothing more than a political question masquerading as a lawsuit and should be dispatched on that basis."

Results
A November 26 statement from the Obama administration acknowledged Russian efforts to interfere in the election, but expressed confidence in the integrity of the electoral infrastructure, indicating that the results of the election "accurately reflect the will of the American people."  On November 27, the White House released another statement saying, "the federal government did not observe any increased level of malicious cyberactivity aimed at disrupting our electoral process on Election Day."

Reactions
On November 26, Trump released a statement, speaking out against Stein's decision, calling the recount a "scam" whose real aim is to fill the Green Party's coffers, and saying that "the election is over". Stein responded by saying the donations for the recount are "all going into a dedicated and segregated account so that it can only be spent on the recount." Recount accounts are covered under the Federal Election Commission Advisory Opinion 2006–24, which left the use of any remaining funds to be settled by the FEC at a later time.

Trump also used Twitter to allege that "serious voter fraud" had occurred in California, New Hampshire, and Virginia, and claimed, without citing evidence, that "millions of people" voted illegally. On January 25, 2017, President Trump vowed to start a federal investigation into alleged voter fraud. In June 2019, Trump referenced a settlement that Judicial Watch had recently reached with California "where California admitted to a million votes...there was much illegal voting." The Judicial Watch settlement actually related to purging 1.5 million inactive individuals from voter registration rolls.

According to Politico, many of Clinton's closest allies were "irritated with Jill Stein" and did not believe that the recount would change the election's results, though they did feel that they had an obligation to participate.

Stein's former running mate Ajamu Baraka opposed the recount efforts, writing in a Facebook post, "The recount effort has resulted in serious questions regarding the motivations of the recount that threatens to damage the standing and reputation of the Green Party, its supporters and activists". He also told CNN, "It would be seen as carrying the water for the Democrats". The Green Party's Maryland Senate candidate Margaret Flowers circulated an open letter, which has signatures from many prominent Green Party members, opposing the recount. The letter read, "While we support electoral reforms, including how the vote is counted, we do not support the current recount being undertaken by Jill Stein".

See also

Elections in the United States
2000 United States presidential election recount in Florida

References

Recounts
Recounts
Presidential election recounts
Green Party of the United States campaigns
Presidential recounts
Presidential recounts
Vote counting
Presidential recounts