This case decided the 2000 presidential election

This case essentially decided the 2000 presidential election in favor of Republican George W. Bush over Democrat Al Gore.

Background

The election had come down to whoever won Florida's electoral votes would become the next president.

There were issues with several ballots in several Florida counties - including a large number of undervotes - ballots on which tabulating machines failed to detect a vote for president.

The Florida Supreme Court had approved manual recounts and extended the original completion deadline.

The Supreme Court overturned that - ordering the recounts stopped.

Majority: Recount creates unequal treatment

In his majority opinion, Chief Justice William Rehnquist acknowledged that the number of ballots in question was greater than the vote difference between Bush and Gore.

He wrote, however, that the standards for whether to count a ballot could differ - even within the same county - violating the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause.

The Florida Supreme Court also did not have the authority to extend the completion deadline, he wrote.

Dissent: Federal courts should not intervene

Writing in dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that, regardless of any of the above, the Florida Supreme Court had the ultimate authority to rule on how votes were counted.

While it would be a violation of the Equal Protection Clause had individual votes been weighted unequally, "we have never before called into question the substantive standard by which a State determines that a vote has been legally cast," Stevens wrote.

He also noted that a "single impartial magistrate" would ultimately adjudicate all objections arising from the recount process.

Stevens concluded:

"In the interest of finality ... the majority effectively orders the disenfranchisement of an unknown number of voters whose ballots reveal their intent ... but were for some reason rejected by ballot-counting machines."

In a separate dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote:

"Ideally, perfection would be the appropriate standard for judging the recount. But we live in an imperfect world, one in which thousands of votes have not been counted. I cannot agree that the recount adopted by the Florida court, flawed as it may be, would yield a result any less fair or precise than the certification that preceded that recount ...

... By halting the manual recount, and thus ensuring that the uncounted legal votes will not be counted under any standard, this Court crafts a remedy out of proportion to the asserted harm. And that remedy harms the very fairness interests the Court is attempting to protect."