Fri Sep 13, 7:41 PM ET By ALLEN G. BREED, Associated Press Writer

MIAMI (AP) - Janet Reno ( news - web sites) asked for a statewide recount Friday of every vote in Florida's botched primary and was promptly turned down by the state elections board. The secretary of state, however, said counties could continue to look for untallied votes that could erase Bill McBride's lead in the Democratic race for governor.

Secretary of State Jim Smith said there would be no recounts under any circumstances, but newly found votes could be submitted by counties with their updated totals for final certification next week.

"Whatever those totals are at that time, will, at that time, determine who the winner of the gubernatorial primary is," Smith said.

That means Reno needs a clear victory when final results come in Tuesday. After Wednesday, candidates have 10 days to challenge the results in court.

The unofficial count, released Thursday, showed Reno trailing McBride by 8,196 votes, a margin greater than the half-a-percentage point needed to force an automatic recount in the race to take on freshman Republican Gov. Jeb Bush this fall.

Reno has said she doesn't want to challenge the election results in court, and Alan Greer, her campaign attorney, all but ruled out a lawsuit.

"I do not foresee a set of circumstances where we will be filing litigation," he said. "She does not want to freeze the Democratic Party."

McBride, a political newcomer, declared victory Thursday after the unofficial state count was released. Reno, the former Clinton attorney general, refused to concede, saying there were discrepancies in at least 80 Miami-Dade County precincts and elsewhere.

Using Reno's list of questionable precincts and factoring in Miami-Dade's voter turnout of 32.7 percent, up to 8,000 votes could have been missed, according to a computer analysis by The Associated Press.

Since Reno won about 70 percent of the Miami-Dade vote, she could presumably pick up enough votes in that county alone to dramatically close the gap with McBride.

Miami-Dade officials said they would not release details about their vote review until Tuesday, the state deadline. They are examining machines from the whole county, including those where Reno workers questioned shockingly low turnout.

In one precinct, computers registered 900 percent more votes than there were eligible voters, while no votes were recorded in several precincts with thousands of voters.

In neighboring Broward County, which also went heavily for Reno, officials were auditing results from one precinct that showed 0 percent turnout among more than 800 registered voters. Reno asked officials in Broward to review as many as 200 precincts.

She said she would only concede after the review process had run its course.

"My whole purpose is to get the votes counted and to let the votes speak — not Janet Reno speak — but let the votes speak," she said. "That's what the democratic process is all about."

The election woes remind many of the five weeks it took to straighten out the 2000 presidential election in Florida.

The state and counties spent millions on new technology to prevent a repeat of the debacle with paper ballots, but the touchscreen computers caused new difficulties, including reports of disenfranchisement.

The 80 Miami-Dade precincts targeted by Reno reported a total of 1,952 votes cast. But those precincts had 31,375 registered Democrats. If the precincts matched the average county turnout, they would have produced 10,260 votes — more than five times the number reported, according to an AP analysis.

Miami-Dade elections chief David Leahy said workers have examined four polling stations that originally showed a total of 96 votes. The review boosted the total to 1,914 votes, though officials didn't say who got the votes.

Maurice Cason said she voted for Reno at Shadowlawn Elementary School in Miami's Little Haiti and watched from her nearby home as hundreds of others streamed to the polls.

The precinct has 1,416 registered Democrats, yet county officials recorded no votes from the school.

"I always used to say my little vote didn't count," said Cason, 76. "The last time in the presidential mess, I don't see where I counted then. This is the second time we've had this mess."

There were also complaints about a lack of training for poll workers on the new machines.

Dorothy Walton, precinct clerk in Miami's predominantly black Liberty City neighborhood, said she was given only three hours of instruction and a promised technician never showed up to help poll workers with the machines.

In her precinct, which has 1,406 registered Democrats, the machines initially recorded only 87 votes. On Wednesday, election officials raised that total to 610 votes after checking the machines.

The review in Miami-Dade is expected to take much of the weekend as officials insert an "activator" in voting machines, download the results and send them to a computer in the central office.

Also Friday, Bush sent letters to election supervisors in Broward and Miami-Dade, scolding them for the primary problems and demanding a written report on what went wrong and how the counties would prevent similar problems in November.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Associated Press writers Alex Veiga, David Royse and John Pain contributed to this story.

-- Anonymous, September 13, 2002

Answers

Didn't she pay attention in 2000? You'd think she'd know the laws, what with being a Florida Attorney General, and then Federal. Wait a minute! What am I saying!? She never paid attention to the laws before unless it suited her.

-- Anonymous, September 14, 2002