The case of Bush v Gore occurred in 2000, at the time of the Presidential Election.

George W. Bush was the former governer of Texas and Vice President Al Gore both needed to win Florida to claim the presidency. The polls closed with just 537 votes separating them.

Under Florida law this meant a machine recount was needed.

Due to highly-publicized controversy over whether the design of the ballots confused voters or whether the machines would miscount incorrectly completed ballots, the Florida Supreme Court ordered manual recounts in several counties

But, the U.S. Supreme Court immediately ordered these recounts to stop the following day, declaring that counting certain ballots by different methods than others violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourth Amendment.

The Court found that the recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court was invalid, and that no alternative recount could be performed within the state's legal time limit for getting the results in.

On 12 December 2000, the Supreme Court ruled that the original Florida results would stand.