Reply #15: I've got a theory on why they backed down on that point ...

[Lisa]

It would have shifted the focus of the movie considerably. The voting machine company comes out looking pretty bad here, no matter what. If they made the corporate CEOs in league with one or the other of the major parties, there wouldn't be as much of a dilemma for Laura Linney (as the programmer), trying to decide whether or not to come forward. As it is, the plot involves enough scheming (around the profit and error-coverup motives). Since the movie doesn't implicitly state that the "error" was deliberate (though a viewer could probably go through the film and point out hints that it still might be), instead of being faced with conventional "bust open the political conspiracy" story, she can now struggle with whether to ignore the mistake because someone whom she likes (and might actually do a good job) has mistakenly been installed in power.

After all, Dobbs does appear to "win" the election, and if the thing had been deliberately fixed, either he would have to be some type of villain, or a puppet of the real villains (which would actually make for quite an interesting movie, though a different and much more sinister one than is shown here).

I saw it as an attempt to reach out to the segment of the population who voted for Bush in 2004 (and possibly in 2000 too) and who are now wavering. The filmmakers might be saying, "Okay -- let's imagine that your guy really is as kind, humble, and decent as his handlers claimed -- what would his response have been to not actually winning the election?" (Note the considerable parallels with the early-1990s film "Dave", where the "president" cedes power to the rightful leader, and both he and the audience are secure in the belief that we won't suffer because of this .... in that movie, Ben Kingsley as the vice president was depicted as much better qualified, and in this one, the Democratic incumbent and actual winner is shown to be more trustworthy than his Republican challenger.)

Personally I would have liked to have seen this movie come out before the 2004 election instead -- but people may not have been as aware about electronic voting problems then.