McBride claims victory in nomination race but may face challenge

HE gave a victory speech, thanked supporters and even began challenging the Republican opponent to a series of debates. But Bill McBride’s bid for the Democratic nomination in the Florida gubernatorial race is far from over.

Opponent Janet Reno has refused to concede and isn’t ruling out a court challenge after questions arose about balloting in two big counties where she had expected to pick up more votes.

Mr McBride, a Tampa lawyer, held an 8,196-vote lead over the former Attorney General after unofficial results were certified on Thursday.

The certification came two days after a primary in which polling stations opened late and election workers had a myriad of problems with new touchscreen voting machines that were brought in after the 2000 presidential election.

Mr McBride’s razor-thin margin of victory exceeded half a percentage point, the trigger for an automatic machine recount. More than 1.3 million votes were cast.

But problems have cropped up that could benefit Reno.

For one, Miami-Dade officials reviewed the vote totals from four precincts on Thursday and found an additional 1,818 votes that had not been counted.

The county did not say how many of those votes were for Ms Reno, who won Miami-Dade by more than a 3-1 margin in Tuesday’s primary and fell only 1,445 votes short of triggering the recount.

Officials said the four precincts originally showed a total of 96 votes that had not been counted.

Miami-Dade officials were also re-examining the count on Thursday in 10 precincts that showed turnout was less than 10%.

“We have experienced many questions about the electoral process. I think those questions must be answered,” Ms Reno said.

According to the state, Mr McBride had 601,008 votes, or 44.5%, to Ms Reno’s 592,812 votes, or 43.9%. State Sen Daryl Jones of Miami had 156,358 votes, or 11.6%.

The deadline for official certifications of the results is next week.