"I'm shocked. I really am, " said Irby McKnight, an Overtown activist who helped run Suarez's campaign. "I don't operate like that."

"I think that's a terrible thing, " McKnight said. "Black people died for the vote, and there's not enough money to buy mine. If you do that, you should go to prison, because you are weakening our democracy."

"We ran a crystal-clear campaign, " Carollo said. "There's nobody from our side that put up any money. I know the kind of campaign we ran -- we run it as straight as anyone can run it."

State law makes it a third-degree felony to pay someone to vote for a candidate. It's a misdemeanor violation for a voter to sell his or her vote.

JUST BEFORE THE RUNOFF
Campaigns focused on inner-city votes

The Overtown vote-buying operation came a day before the Nov. 13 runoff, at a time when the mayoral campaigns were desperate to drum up support in Miami's black neighborhoods.

Campaign professionals said many black voters lost interest in the elections the week before, when veteran politician Arthur E. Teele Jr. easily won election to a seat on the Miami City Commission. Teele represents predominantly black District 5, which includes Overtown.

Both Suarez and Carollo are white Cuban Americans.

"The people in this community didn't care, not at all, " who won the mayoral election, said McKnight, the political consultant who spearheaded Suarez's campaign in Overtown. "A lot of people said, 'I'm not going to vote for anybody but Teele.' It didn't matter who was mayor."

Despite that apathy, the number of absentee votes from Overtown rose in the mayoral runoff.

On Nov. 4, when Teele and opponent Pierre Rutledge were on the ballot, 48 people living within a half-mile of the St. John church voted absentee, election results show. For the Nov. 13 race, that number rose to 75.

Election records show that none of the five who sold their votes cast ballots in the Nov. 4 primary. Several told The Herald they turned out only because of the $10 offer.

"You're trying to make 10 bucks, you know?" said Dunning, the man who lives in an apartment overlooking the church lot. "Ten bucks is ten bucks." He said he took the money but received no instructions on how to vote.

'ABUSING' THE SYSTEM
Sites for early voting will now be cut back

For years, the elections department has set up a number of early voting sites around Miami-Dade where people can cast ballots a week or more before Election Day. Those votes are counted as absentees, since they are cast outside a voter's home precinct.

James Kohanek, assistant elections supervisor, said campaigns are "abusing" that system by busing in voters who could easily vote at the polls. All of the sites except the county building will be shut down in future elections, he said.

"It was set up as a convenience for the voter, and all it turned out to be was an abuse by candidates, " Kohanek said.

Miami-Dade election administrators have long heard reports of vote-buying in Dade.

"You always hear it, but you never see it, and no one has ever brought any proof, " Kohanek said.

In separate interviews, each of the five voters and nine witnesses interviewed by The Herald gave similar descriptions of the vote-buying operation:

"I went over there because I saw all the people and thought they were giving out food, " said Bobby Hobbs, 70, still covered with dust from his job as a $5.14-an-hour day laborer. He said he was driven to County Hall in an old blue Chevrolet sedan, voted, and returned to the church lot in a van.