There are no rules other than winning.

The Big Fix
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_09_26_digbysblog_archive.html#109632193732053023
Digby, quoting Jeffrey Rosen:
Gore and his team knew that the Republicans would fight with everything they had, but they still maintained some faith in the legal system to require basic fairness in something this important. And, even the most cynical of us thought that the egos of the Supreme Court justices would never allow them to make a purely partisan decision because history would remember them as whores.
If I had any political idealism left it died on the day that Antonin Scalia stopped judges from counting votes in Florida.
This article shows that fix was in from the beginning. Had Gore audaciously requested a statewide recount he would have been accused of not following the strict laws that required him to show problems in each precinct. It was always headed to the Supremes and once they took the case, the interviews with the Supreme court clerks show that there was never any question about who would win. It was always a decision in search of a rationale.
If Jeffrey Rosen is correct and dozens of lawsuits await filing in close races out there, all based on this ill-considered opinion, then we are likely to see a repeat. After all, the same five vote majority still sits on the court today. And like all the others who voted for this irresponsible, unqualified, incompetent boob in 2000, they are not likely to admit their mistake and vote otherwise this time out.
This time, we must operate on that assumption and prepare for a knife fight --- in the courts and in the realm of public opinion. There are no rules other than winning.

Links to a great Vanity Fair article on the 2000 election in Florida:
http://www.goldsteinhowe.com/blog/files/VFPart1.pdf
http://www.goldsteinhowe.com/blog/files/VFPart2.pdf