The campaign workers used a variety of tactics: They registered people to vote at addresses where they didn't live. They punched voters' absentee ballots without permission. They cast ballots in the names of people who insist they did not vote. They cast questionable ballots themselves.

And they signed dozens of ballots as witnesses, even though they weren't present when the voters signed the envelopes, as state law requires.

Among the campaign workers collecting and witnessing questionable ballots were members of Hernandez's family and his closest aides.

Some supporters of Suarez and Hernandez described in interviews how they engaged in dubious electioneering.

Alfredo Perez said Hernandez campaign workers moved his voter registration to an address in the commissioner's district, even though he did not live there.

Miriam Mor said a top Hernandez aide told her to witness ballots for a couple who lived far outside Miami -- in West Dade. Mor later changed her story: "My memory improved."

Zunilda Menendez, who worked for both campaigns and was paid $858 by Hernandez, acknowledged she never met most of the people whose absentee ballots she signed as witness -- including two questionable ballots.

"I got a pile of absentee ballots from Humbertico's father at the campaign headquarters on Flagler and he said, 'Here, you can sign those, ' " Menendez said.

Suarez and Hernandez denied any wrongdoing, as did Hernandez's father. "There was no organized conspiracy in this election from either camp. Any wrongdoing that has been found was unintentional, as far as I know, " Hernandez said.

"You guys have not found enough to say this was widespread. Fraud is fraud. We shouldn't allow one fraudulent vote. But it wasn't substantial, and it shouldn't overturn the election."

Suarez would not grant an interview, but issued a brief statement saying he ran a clean campaign.

"I urge The Miami Herald to concentrate on substantive matters affecting the city, " Suarez said. "The constant emphasis on the election is tiresome, to put it mildly." Absentee ballots decided the November mayor's race. Nearly 12 percent of the 44,000 votes cast came from absentee voters, the largest proportion of any race in city history.

ABSENTEE REQUESTS

Suarez forced incumbent Joe Carollo into a runoff by collecting twice as many absentee votes in the Nov. 4 election. Nearly 40 percent of those ballots cast citywide came from Hernandez's Commission District 3, where his campaign ran an aggressive absentee-ballot operation.

So many requests for absentee ballots poured into the Miami-Dade County elections department that it had to print new ones to keep up with demand. With little oversight, bad votes went largely unchecked.

In the scramble, some people say, their votes were stolen.

"I was taken advantage of, " said Ada Perez, 70, who was tracked by a Hernandez operative she could not name at a hospital, where she was recovering from a severe stroke just before the Nov. 4 election.

Perez, a Little Havana resident who wanted to vote for then-incumbent Joe Carollo, described how the operative badgered her to vote for Suarez, then finally took her ballot and punched it for her. Whose number was punched? She doesn't know.

The witness name on her ballot is Jorge L. De Goti, Hernandez's 29-year-old chief of staff. De Goti was out of town and could not be reached for comment.

A VOTER'S COMPLAINT