BY LESLEY CLARK AND PETER WALLSTEN
  lclark@herald.com

  After a week of scouring for missed votes in South Florida failed to ensure her victory, Janet Reno conceded the Democratic nomination for governor to Bill McBride on
  Tuesday, urging her supporters to vote for her former rival.

  The four-minute speech from her campaign headquarters in Miami Lakes capped a week of uncertainty in yet another flawed Florida election and reduced her
  volunteers and staff to tears. Democrats, fearful that a prolonged rift could cost them traction in their bid to defeat Gov. Jeb Bush, rushed to rally around McBride and
  offered plaudits to Reno, as she declared McBride would make ``a great governor.''

  ''And I want to do everything that I possibly can to see that he gets elected,'' Reno said firmly, after results showed she gained 3,402 votes in Miami-Dade, Broward
  and several other counties -- not nearly enough to erase McBride's 8,196-vote lead after the Sept. 10 primary.

  McBride, the political newcomer who declared victory last Thursday but kept a low profile as Reno waged a campaign to count missing ballots, released a statement
  after she spoke saying his respect for Reno ``cannot be overstated.''

  ''Janet Reno's gracious statement this afternoon is another confirmation of why she is such a respected and beloved person in the state of Florida,'' McBride said.

  Reno's concession and the new show of Democratic unity came a week to the day after chaos at the polls in South Florida -- from lost votes to shuttered polling places
  -- put the outcome of the Democratic primary in doubt and cast Reno and McBride in a near-reprise of the 2000 presidential debacle.

  The final tally, released lateTuesday, showed a difference between the candidates of less than half of 1 percent of the total vote in the race -- the range that would
  have triggered an automatic recount had it been calculated last week.

  Even as she accepted defeat, Reno pledged to push for election reform, blaming Bush for failing to ensure an error-free election.

  ''As a candidate, I have put the election behind me,'' said Reno, who has said she will not sue to challenge the results. ``But as a private citizen I want to do
  everything in my power to see that the people of the state of Florida have the right to vote, the right to vote in a timely way, the right to vote for a candidate of their
  choice and the right to have their vote counted in an accurate and timely fashion.

  ''I will file lawsuits in my name, I will do anything I can that is right and proper to see that the voting processes of this state have the confidence of the people of this
  state and can produce a democratic result,'' the former U.S. attorney general said.

  McBride, criticized by some Reno partisans for not making an issue of the voting irregularities, will kick off his delayed campaign in Tallahassee today, where his
  presumed running mate, state Sen. Tom Rossin, a Royal Palm Beach Democrat, is expected to file his papers to run. The campaign plans a stop in Orlando later today.

  On Thursday, McBride is set to appear in South Florida in a show of unity with Reno and state Sen. Daryl Jones, who finished a distant third in the race but garnered a
  strong 12 percent of the vote.

  McBride advisors have urged him to campaign in South Florida so as not to slight Reno's powerful base, where voters remain angry at the botched election that
  resulted in dozens of precincts registering far fewer votes than registered voters.

  Bush, whom the Democrats hope to blame for the voting debacle, pronounced himself ''delighted'' with the prospect of knowing whom he will face in November. His
  campaign has already run attack ads focusing on McBride's tenure as managing partner at Holland & Knight, the Tampa-based law firm.

  ''For a year, three opponents have been banging on my head and saying ugly things about me, but not being very specific about what they'd do differently,'' Bush said.
  ``I am looking forward to a good fight and I intend to win . . . We have three debates, man to man, mano a mano.''

  Before Reno even took to the microphone to concede, the Bush campaign was on the offensive, e-mailing a press release that accused McBride of being short on
  details. Minutes after Reno spoke, state GOP chairman Al Cárdenas accused McBride of pandering ``to the tax-and-spenders.''

  ''I hope he will once and for all explain how he plans to pay for the billions in spending promises he has made,'' Bush said of McBride.

  At a Fort Lauderdale press conference Tuesday afternoon, Bush congratulated McBride, but challenged him ``to lay out specifically what he will do.''

  ''In the last year, he and his Democratic primary opponent have basically had one organizing principle: that I am a bad guy and we're on the wrong track. . . Vague
  promises aren't going to cut it in the general election,'' Bush said.

  A spokesman for McBride noted he had unveiled an education plan, which includes a 50-cent per-pack tax on cigarettes.

  ''Bill has a plan to reduce class sizes; Jeb doesn't,'' said Tony Welch, a spokesman for the Florida Teachers Union on loan to the McBride campaign. ``I guess he thinks
  the larger the classes, the better. We have focused primarily on education, but we are going to keep talking about all the issues. ''

  McBride has offered to defend his ideas, touring the state with Bush from the back of a flatbed truck, debating ''Lincoln-Douglas style.'' But Bush on Tuesday called the
  offer ''trash talking'' and said he'd stick to three previously scheduled debates.

  Republican strategists say Reno's efforts to make election reform an issue against Bush will help them send a subtle message that McBride is not a legitimate nominee.

  Reno waved off questions about how she could make the case that McBride legitimately won the same election that she now says was unfair.

  Asked if she is undermining McBride's candidacy, she retorted, ``No way.''

  ''I think that Bill McBride is the nominee fair and square,'' she said. ``People including myself have concerns about the electoral process. But his nomination is clear.''

  Still, it remained unclear whether Reno conceded because she was convinced that she actually lost the election or because she was wronged by flawed voting systems
  in her home base of Broward and Miami-Dade counties.

  Asked finally if she was conceding because she lost or because she merely didn't want to prolong a legal fuss that has split the party, Reno said flatly: ``I lost.''

  Campaign strategists privately said Tuesday that they do not have faith that Broward elections officials actually found all the missing votes. Reno declined to speculate
  about Broward, saying only: ``We shall see.''

  Two of the three canvassing board members in Broward said they, too, have doubts about the results.

  The board said it had uncovered 1,179 new votes, including 790 cast in the governor's race, but Administrative Judge Jay Spechler said elections workers should have
  matched the number of people who signed in at the polls against the number of votes cast.

  ''I have a lingering concern,'' said Spechler, who voted against certifying the revised numbers. ``I think the board as well as the public would feel a lot more
  comfortable if those numbers matched up.''

  Broward County Attorney Ed Dion said state law only requires the board to be ''reasonably certain'' of the accuracy of the vote tallies.

  Embattled Broward elections supervisor Miriam Oliphant made her first public statement since a Thursday press conference, telling reporters she had been
  incommunicado because she was under strict deadlines to meet the governor's demands that she provide him with answers about the election mistakes.

  In Miami-Dade County, Assistant County Attorney Murray Greenberg, whose office will fight any legal challenges to the election, attended the ritual signing of the vote
  certification.

  ''These election results are good and official,'' Greenberg said.

  And elections supervisor David Leahy sought to assure voters his department finally got it right.

  ''I'm confident the results . . . and our recollection of votes are accurate,'' said Leahy, who has blamed the voting fiasco on overwhelmed poll workers and software
  that choked when asked to provide ballots in three different languages.

  The repercussions from the foul-ups are sure to keep coming.

  Asked if he truly believed his head was on ''the chopping block'' because of the election snags -- as Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas has suggested -- Miami-Dade
  County Manager Steve Shiver retorted:

  ``Given the experience we had on Sept. 10, don't you think it should be?''

  And in Tallahassee, Secretary of Smith Jim Smith used blunt language to criticize Reno for lashing out at the governor.

  ''It burns me up to see this campaign start off with these kinds of cheap shots,'' Smith said. ``She has got a legitimate beef, I think, that because of what happened in
  South Florida we may never know who the winner of that race was.

  ''But to blame that on the governor of Florida is a cheap political shot,'' he said.

  But as Reno answered questions, her frustration with the experience was palpable. She was delayed in voting at her own precinct when the machines weren't yet
  ready. At one point, she suggested that she has now experienced the same sensation as Al Gore in 2000, when Democrats believed that he would have won if all the
  votes that were intended to be for him in Florida had been counted.

  ''He said he understood,'' said Reno, who ate lunch with Gore at a Hollywood fundraiser just hours before her speech Tuesday.

  As for life as a private citizen -- something Reno has not experienced much since the 1970s -- she said she plans to ''learn to play the piano more effectively'' and
  perfect her favorite kayaking move, the eskimo roll.

  Asked what her legacy would be to her home state, Reno appeared to choke up, and declined to offer an answer.

  ''George Washington wrote a letter to someone who had asked him by letter what his legacy would be,'' she said. ``He said if I were to write all that down I might be
  reduced to tears.

  ''I'd prefer to drift on down the stream of life and let history make the judgment,'' she said.

  Herald staff writers Erika Bolstad, Joni James, Phil Long, Beth Reinhard and Luisa Yanez contributed to this report.