A Homestead janitor did it. So did a Miami Beach widow, a Kendall anti-porn activist and a high school teacher from Miramar -- in Broward County.

The Herald, after reviewing just 3 percent of the votes in the November elections, has so far found 105 illegal votes for Miami's mayor and commissioners.

Of those, 68 votes came from people who lived outside the city. State law says that citizens cannot vote in a city election unless they actually live there.

Other illegal votes came from people who live in Miami, but outside the commission district where they have their voting registration -- also disallowed by state law.

"The only people who should be able to vote on issues that affect their government are those who have a direct stake in the election, " said Mike Cochran, assistant general counsel of the state Division of Elections.

But records show that many had been voting for years, in election after election -- canceling the votes of real Miami residents and taxpayers in the process. The nonresident voters include:

* Alicia Santa Cruz, 69, a Havana-born widow who has lived in Miami Beach for the past 13 years -- and voted in the city of Miami all the while. "I know I shouldn't be doing it, " Santa Cruz says. "But I don't want to forget my people, my blood."

* The Hernandez clan of Flagami on Miami's western edge. They pile into a van and head to Kinloch Park Middle School to vote every Election Day. "It's a tradition, " Onelio Hernandez says. "The important things we do as a family together, " adds his niece, Olga Hernandez Marco.

But Onelio and Olga live in Coral Gables, not Miami. Olga moved out of Miami nine years ago.

"Well, if it's against the law, we'll have to change next time, " Onelio Hernandez said.

* Willie Darby, 53, who moved to an apartment on Palm Avenue in Hialeah six months ago. He still cast a ballot from his old address in Miami's commission District 3. He changed his registration to Hialeah after being interviewed by The Herald.

"I've always felt more in tune with things in Miami than anywhere else, " Darby said. He bristled when asked if he thought he could be breaking the law.

"Look, I'm an American citizen and I feel you don't violate the law when you vote, " he said. "It's my right as an American citizen."

A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE
Voting by nonresidents also violates state law

Voting where you live is a bedrock principle of elections, a guarantee that a city's leaders are chosen by the people who are affected most -- those who have to pay the taxes and live with the services.

State elections law also enshrines that fundamental rule, saying that voters must be registered at their legal residence, and must live within the borders of a town to vote there. It's a third-degree felony for an ineligible voter to "willfully" cast a ballot.

In Miami, that law is routinely ignored.

The Herald already has reported widespread irregularities among the 4,740 absentee ballots cast in Miami's Nov. 4 primary election -- out-of-Miami residents registering at phony addresses, forged signatures and at least one ballot cast in the name of a dead man.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating and has made three arrests. The most recent came late Friday, when 25-year-old Yarina de los Rios, the law secretary of Miami City Commission Chairman Humberto Hernandez, was charged with falsifying her address so she could vote for her boss.