Broward Sheriff's candidate Scott Israel, County Commissioner John Rodstrom and state Senate candidate Eleanor Sobel all won by margins just wide enough to avoid recounts, county officials confirmed Thursday.

That official word came as the county canvassing board met Thursday evening to accept about 350 provisional ballots and certify Tuesday's primary vote.

The provisional ballots, which are given to voters who have their voting eligibility questioned, didn't change the outcomes of any close races -- including a couple of hot-button contests where candidates were separated by just a few hundred votes.

However, on Friday, the state is expected to order a machine recount of one judicial race -- to determine whether incumbent Pedro E Dijols or attorney Mardi Anne Levey will face Bernard Bober, a public defender, on the ballot Nov. 4.

Under state law, machine recounts are required if the margin of victory is less than 0.5 percent. If the machine recount then shows a margin of less than 0.25 percent, there is a manual recount of any undervotes or overvotes. The judicial recount could take at least 20 hours and be spread over several days. Broward officials have said they plan to transport voting machines from Miami-Dade County to shorten the process.

The canvassing board Thursday did not discuss the county's delay in counting the ballots cast Tuesday. In a primary with a skimpy 11 percent turnout, it took the county 21 hours to count the ballots, leaving some races in limbo for nearly a day.

Broward officials said the new optical-scan voting equipment worked fine and blamed the delay on a breakdown in transmitting results to election headquarters. They insisted the problem will be corrected by November's general election, attempting to allay concern from candidates, political leaders and voters.

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