Documentary Film Released about Marion County 2004 Election
Aug 1, 2006 07:08 PM EDT

By Jim Shella
News 8 @ 6:00

Marion County Clerk Doris Anne Sadler endured significant criticism for her handling of the 2004 election, but recently the criticism turned to praise and that change can be traced to a documentary film.

"By The People" is the name of this documentary by Indianapolis native Malindi Fickle, now a New York filmmaker. It's a behind the scenes look at the 2004 election in Marion County. The film won rave reviews in New York City over the weekend, five stars in the New York Times.

"I took a risk because I'm not sure there are any other election officials that would want people following them around because of all the scrutiny that we get all the time in the media," says Sadler.

The film begins 11 days before the election and shows routine things such as poll worker training. nd the out of ordinary, including a jail inmate casting a ballot.

But mostly filmmakers captured how difficult it is to stage an election, right down to answering questions from 24-Hour News 8. The director says the goal is to convince people to participate and not take voting for granted.

"People who've seen the movie are just overwhelmed at the number of tasks that occur and the level of detail that goes into it," said Sadler.

Doris Anne Sadler attended showings of "By The People" in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and New York City. She says that in both places people came up to her afterward and asked her to run for office there.

The film will be shown in Indianapolis later this month and on PBS nationwide in October.