If I remember right, they decided to be fair to the rest, they had to recount the WHOLE state. If they recounted the whole state, then the rest of the nation could recount-equal protection.
That started the whole thing off. The Bush team took it to the Atlanta court which said they wouldnt take it, then after the FL court ruled, they took it directly to the SCOTUS.
The SCOTUS basically said..”How in the hell did you come to that conclusion?”
The FL court withdrew the ruling. They couldnt explain it.
It was a two-part ruling. The first SCOTUS ruling was 7-2 that equal protection within the state meant that all voters had the right to have their vote recounted - no cherry-picking Democrat-heavy counties only.
The second vote was 5-4 that the state had to have the recount done in time for certification. It was that vote caused Florida to stop the recount and certify, because the legislature was ready to act.
The MSM paid for an independent Florida recount after the election was over, and found that under any condition of hanging chads, etc., that Bush still won the state.
There was no ruling that other states had to recount if Florida recounted, because each state is a self-contained election, and only so because the legislatures of each state chose via Article II to use popular elections as the method for selecting Electors to the Electoral College. No state's choice should have binding actions on other states.
-PJ