Their attempt failed. The elections department’s software flagged the phantom requests as suspicious, and elections staff did not mail those voters any ballots — a point Garcia stressed.

“From my conversations thus far, no ballots were tampered with,” he told reporters.

The congressman laid some blame on what he called a “flawed” absentee-voting process. When asked how he could explain his campaign’s involvement, Garcia blamed the region’s rough-and-tumble politics, which had already marred the Congressional District 26 race.

“I explain it with the reckless abandon that we play politics in South Florida,” he said. “It shouldn’t be that way.”

A separate, federal corruption investigation stemming from last year’s congressional primary has been examining whether Republican David Rivera, the incumbent Garcia ultimately defeated, had ties to the illegally funded primary campaign of Justin Lamar Sternad, one of Garcia’s primary opponents. Rivera has denied wrongdoing.

Republicans viewed Garcia as vulnerable even before his office was engulfed in the phantom-ballots investigation, with three potential opponents already lined up. Between Friday and Saturday, the National Republican Congressional Committee, the chairman of the Miami-Dade Republican Party and Miami-Dade School Board member Carlos Curbelo, who may challenge Garcia next year, questioned whether the congressman was revealing all he knew about campaign’s involvement in the ballot scandal.

“Floridians deserve to know what Congressman Joe Garcia knew about this voter fraud scheme and when did he know it,” NRCC spokeswoman Katie Prill said in a written statement.

Miami-Dade Democratic Party Chairwoman Annette Taddeo-Goldstein, who slipped into Garcia’s news conference Saturday morning, also called for further investigating into the matter.

“I share in Congressman Garcia’s anger, and I’m disappointed,” she told the Herald. “I hope that what we get out of this is a thorough investigation of all the absentee-ballot tampering that has been going on for a long time.”

Garcia said he did not know that his staff was involved in the scheme because, in a campaign, “every person has a role to play.”

“You try to create compartments in a campaign,” he said.

Garcia said he had spoken to Sopo, who denied taking part in the plot. The congressman said he would likely reassign Sopo’s duties and place him on administrative leave. Garcia said he had not spoken to Estes. Sopo declined to comment Saturday. Estes could not be reached.

From the voters, Garcia asked for a chance to conduct an internal investigation and cooperate with authorities. He plans to hire attorney William Barzee for the internal review, and Garcia said he spoke late Friday to Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernández Rundle.

“If I’m upset, they must be even more upset,” Garcia said of voters. “I hope they give us an opportunity to explain this.”