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Which part of the Fourteenth Amendment was central to Bush v. Gore?

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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.

The central part of the Fourteenth Amendment in the case of Bush v. Gore was the equal protection clause.12

In its 7–2 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the various methods and standards used for the manual recount of ballots across different Florida counties violated this clause, which guarantees that no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction "the equal protection of the laws". The Court determined that because these inconsistent standards failed to treat similarly situated voters equally, the recount process as ordered by the Florida Supreme Court was unconstitutional.132