Question

In the case of Bush v. Gore (2000), the Court ruled that the vote recount in Florida interfered with the candidates’ equal protection under the law because __________.
A.
recounting all the votes in one weekend did not provide enough time to do a fair job
B.
most of the ballots in question came from communities of senior citizens
C.
Florida’s procedure was too similar to the one used in Arizona
D.
different counties had different methods of recounting the votes

Answer 1

The correct answer is D. In the case of Bush v. Gore (2000), the Court ruled that the vote recount in Florida interfered with the candidates’ equal protection under the law because different counties had different methods of recounting the votes.

The Supreme Court ruled that the decision of the Florida Supreme Court to order a recount in the entire state would violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Seven judges voted in favor and two against, but two of the seven judges disagreed with the solution proposed by the other five to remedy the violation. The Court held that the Equal Protection Clause guarantees voters that their vote can not be evalued by "subsequent arbitrary or heterogeneous treatment". Although the recount was right in theory, according to the Court it was not in practice: the documentation provided to the Florida Supreme Court showed that the different counties and also the different constituencies followed different methods for the recount, although in many cases the ballot papers and the machines used for counting votes were identical.