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How did different recount standards among Florida counties raise an equal protection issue?

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U.S. presidential election of 2000 — Bush v. Gore A Florida judge examining a challenged vote at an operations center in Plantation, Florida, during a recount of the state's U.S. presidential election ballots, 2000.

In the case of Bush v. Gore, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the manual recount process ordered by the Florida Supreme Court violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.12

The equal protection issue arose because there were significant inconsistencies in the methods and standards used to conduct manual recounts across different Florida counties. Because the standards for determining voter intent—such as how to interpret "hanging chads" or "undervotes"—varied from one jurisdiction to another, the Court concluded that the state was not treating similarly situated voters equally.23

The majority argued that these disparate standards meant that a ballot might be counted in one county but rejected in another, thereby failing to provide the uniform treatment required by the Constitution. By halting the recount, the Court effectively ended the process, as it determined that no new, constitutionally uniform recount could be completed by the federal "safe harbor" deadline.21