ANOTHER REGISTRATION

At the campaign workers' behest, Perez said, he also registered his sister at the same address, though she, too, lives outside the district.

Perez said he didn't hear about the ballot again until the campaign called and asked him to come over to sign it.

Hernandez Sr. said he had "no recollection" of Perez and denied his story.

"Despite what anybody might claim, I have never switched anybody's address, " he said.

That District 3 address where Perez's voter card landed was also used by a paid Suarez campaign worker, Christina Mansourou.

Public records show that Mansourou, 21, lives with her grandparents outside District 3, at 2801 SW 17th St. But all three voted inside Hernandez's district.

Mansourou switched her voter registration to the district Oct. 17, then switched it back to Southwest 17th Street in December, elections records show. Mansourou, found at her out-of-district home, declined to comment.

Three more possibly bad ballots were cast from the same address where Mansourou's grandparents were registered to vote during the election. None of those three voters live there, either, public records show -- for a total of eight bad ballots at these houses.

Another Suarez supporter linked to a questionable ballot is former department-store chief executive officer Oscar Gaetan, who was hired as a $48,000-a-year special mayoral assistant after the election.

His son, Jason, voted at the polls from his father's Coconut Grove house. But records show that Jason Gaetan lives in a Coral Gables townhouse that he and his wife bought in December 1996.

Jason Gaetan did not answer a note requesting comment. His father said his son and daughter-in-law were living with him while their home was renovated. Coral Gables city records, however, show no building permits for the home in all of 1997.

Gaetan resigned his city job last month.

DENIES WRONGDOING

Suarez, who recently told a state Senate subcommittee that he personally oversaw his absentee-ballot operation, said his campaign workers did nothing wrong.

"I reiterate . . . that our campaign did everything properly and within the law, " he wrote in his statement to The Herald, stressing that he has cooperated with the Senate inquiry and the criminal investigation. "The focus should be on Mr. Carollo and his incredible war chest, not on my modestly funded, grassroots campaign."

If any bad ballots were cast by people linked to the Suarez campaign, they were the result of "human error, " said the mayor's chief of staff, Jorge Alvarez.

"For you to characterize it as fraud is just grossly unfair, " Alvarez said.

Many of the questionable ballots identified by The Herald can be linked directly to the Hernandez campaign.

Questionable ballots were collected, cast by or witnessed by Hernandez's father, two of his aunts, and his baptismal godfather, Juan Balsera.

Hernandez's father played a key role in the campaign, raising funds and directing some of the day-to-day operations. He also helped pull in other volunteers, including 62-year-old Andres Manso, a fellow officer in the Association of Salesmen and Merchants of Florida, a nonprofit group whose Flagler Street office served as campaign headquarters.

WITNESS ON BAD BALLOTS

Manso's name appears as witness on three bad Miami ballots, including those of an elderly couple, Gloria and Cipriano Alvarez, who live in Hialeah and said they never voted. In an earlier story, The Herald said Russi witnessed those ballots.