Bush v. Gore

Majority reasoning

The Court reasoned that once a state grants its citizens the right to vote for presidential electors, that right must be exercised on equal terms, and arbitrary, disparate treatment of ballots violates the Equal Protection Clause. It found the Florida Supreme Court's standard—discerning the "intent of the voter"—was an acceptable starting principle but lacked specific subsidiary rules, resulting in different counting standards from county to county and even within the same county's recount teams, as shown by testimony about inconsistent chad-counting practices. The majority pointed to further problems: the recount included some counties' complete ballot recounts (covering overvotes) while others counted only undervotes, and the certified totals included a partial, incomplete recount from Miami-Dade County, with no assurance further partial counts would be finished consistently. Given these deficiencies, the Court concluded that fashioning a constitutional statewide recount would require substantial additional work—including adopting uniform standards after argument, practicable implementing procedures, and orderly judicial review—that could not be completed by the December 12 deadline the Florida Supreme Court had itself said was intended to secure the federal "safe harbor" benefit, making any recount meeting that date necessarily unconstitutional.

Dissent reasoning

Justice Stevens, joined by Ginsburg and Breyer, argued the federal questions were insubstantial: Article II lets state legislatures act through their state constitutional structures including judicial review, and Florida's "intent of the voter" standard was no less workable than everyday standards like "beyond a reasonable doubt." He contended that even accepting an equal protection problem, the proper remedy was to remand for a uniform standard, not to halt counting of votes conceded to be legal, and that the majority's own decision would disenfranchise voters whose legal votes reveal clear intent. Justice Souter, joined in part by Breyer, Stevens, and Ginsburg, agreed the Florida court's statutory interpretations were reasonable and not unconstitutional distortions, found the Article II and § 5 claims insubstantial, but agreed a real equal protection problem existed from varying standards for identical ballot types and would have remanded to Florida courts to establish uniform standards, arguing there was time before December 18. Justice Ginsburg, joined by others as to Part I, argued federal courts owe strong deference to state courts' interpretations of their own state law, comparing the Florida Supreme Court's reading favorably to precedent, and disputed that the December 12 date carried the significance the majority assigned it since Congress retains authority under 3 U.S.C. § 15. Justice Breyer, joined by Stevens and Ginsburg in part and Souter in part, argued the Court was wrong to take the case or grant a stay, that only the uniformity concern had merit, that the proper remedy was remanding for a uniform standard and continued counting rather than termination, and that halting the recount entirely was disproportionate and itself perpetuated unequal treatment, citing the deep involvement of state political branches and Congress's constitutional and statutory role under the Twelfth Amendment and the Electoral Count Act in resolving such disputes rather than the courts.