McBride wins Florida primary -- maybe

MIAMI, Sept. 12 (UPI) -- Results compiled by the state Thursday showed Tampa attorney Bill McBride defeated former Attorney General Janet Reno in Tuesday's Democratic primary, but uncertainty of the count in Miami-Dade County cast a cloud over the result.

The results of the election in Miami-Dade County have not been certified and officials have asked for an extension until Tuesday to make their final report. Four precincts are being rechecked and at 10 others, low vote totals are prompting another look.

There was no declaration of victory by McBride and no concession by Reno, but Florida Secretary of State Jim Smith, the state's chief election officer, said as far as he is concerned, McBride won.

"Based on the action today, it is clear to me that Bill McBride is the Democratic candidate," Florida Secretary of State Jim Smith. "The recourse for her (Reno), should she go that way, is the courts." Smith said he will deal with Miami-Dade County's delayed report when the time comes. If McBride's victory stands, he will run against incumbent Republican Gov. Jeb Bush, the president's younger brother, in the November general election.

The state canvassed the 67 counties Thursday. The canvass showed that McBride gathered 601,008 votes or 44.5 percent to 592,812 or 43.9 percent for Reno, a margin of 8,196 votes or .6 percent. That count includes Miami-Dade County's uncertified totals. A third candidate, State Sen. Daryl Jones, got 156,358 or 11.6 percent. A margin of .5 percent or less would result in an automatic recount.

McBride's apparent victory represents one of the biggest come-from-behind efforts in Florida election history. Polls in June showed he was more than 25 percentage points behind Reno. The former U.S. attorney general had name recognition on her side, but McBride was able to secure the endorsements of many of the state's labor unions -- including the teachers' -- and he had a comfortable margin in fund raising as a result.

Part of the reason for his late surge was a television ad campaign that dwarfed Reno's. The Democratic Party supported McBride because of the belief he has a better chance of defeating Bush, who ran unopposed in the Republican primary Tuesday.

The results are still clouded by the vote-counting problems in the south Florida counties of Miami Dade and Broward, where Fort Lauderdale is located. Both are considered Reno strongholds.

"This should be an embarrassment to the people who run elections in Miami and Broward County. They should be embarrassed and they'd better fix it," Bush said.

The implementation of statewide voting reforms in the wake of the vote-counting fiasco for the 2000 presidential election amounted to a disaster in some locations. The main problem was operating the new $24.5 million touch-screen voting machines that replaced a punch-card system.

Poll workers complained they didn't have sufficient instructions on how to start the 7,200 new machines and 7 a.m. poll openings were delayed by as much as two hours.

"It was a great inconvenience to the voters in south Florida and a tremendous disservice to the voters throughout the state," a scornful Smith said. "They at least should be able to open the polls on time."

Officials in Miami-Dade County complained of a long ballot but also admitted that erroneous ballots had to be replaced on some machines a day before the elections and some computer programming cards might have been installed upside down.

"Everything was new," said David Leahy, supervisor of elections in Miami-Dade County. "You had new laws, new precincts, new polling places, new equipment and some of these people, I think, just got nervous."

"I've worked elections for 17 years and I've never seen anything so disorganized in my life," said Geraldine Kuhn, a poll worker at Hollywood, Fla., in Broward County.