Most of the problems in the Sept. 10 primary were in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, where polls opened late and some workers were unfamiliar with new technology. Miami-Dade also lost votes -- uncounted ballots discovered after it submitted its unofficial vote total.
After the 2000 presidential recount debacle in Florida, where Bush's brother Jeb is governor, the state approved $6 million for those two counties to upgrade their election systems with new equipment and training.
"I think the president looked at this as a matter that, in those two counties in which Florida found these problems, that those county officials had a lot of new money that the state of Florida provided in order for them to have a successful election," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said. "There was a lot of confusion in those two counties about how to use the new resources, and to use the new equipment."
Fleischer had no criticism for Jeb Bush.
Pressed on whether President Bush was concerned, Fleischer said: "Everybody is concerned about elections everywhere."
"What happened in these two counties the president hopes will not be repeated," he said.
Janet Reno, the former Clinton attorney general, conceded the Democratic nomination for governor to Bill McBride on Tuesday, a week after the primary election. McBride will face Jeb Bush in November.
Florida voting is a sensitive matter at the White House, which Bush captured after a disputed Florida election victory over Democrat Al Gore in which some votes were not recorded because, among other things, ballot cards were not punched all the way through.
Gore was in Jacksonville, Fla., on Wednesday and blamed the state's latest election problems on the Bush brothers. He said money approved by Congress was stopped by the president "and there was a lack of attention and leadership at the state level by Governor Bush."
The governor's office responded by saying each of Florida's 67 counties received unprecedented amounts of money to fix their election systems and only two, Miami-Dade and Broward, run by Democrats, had serious problems.
"The president, of course, in every election, everywhere in the country, hopes that everybody will be able to exercise their franchise as fully as possible," Fleischer said. "And that's why local election officials are given the funding that they're given. And they have a difficult job to do, and the president hopes that they'll be successful."
Also Wednesday, Florida asked the U.S. Justice Department to help prevent another election mess in November. Confidence in the state's efforts to reform its election system has been shaken by the problems in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, Secretary of State Jim Smith said in a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft.
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