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Why did the Supreme Court rule that Florida's recount methods violated equal protection?

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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 2000 case Bush v. Gore, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7–2 that the manual recount process ordered by the Florida Supreme Court violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.123

The Court determined that the recount was unconstitutional because there were significant inconsistencies in the methods and standards used to manually recount ballots across different Florida counties. Because these varying standards lacked uniformity, the Court held that the process failed to provide the equal protection required for voters.23

Following this ruling, the Court decided 5–4 that no constitutionally valid recount could be completed by the federal "safe harbor" deadline, effectively ending the recount process and awarding Florida's electoral votes to George W. Bush.12