Carollo challenged the results of the first round, claiming that absentee ballot fraud had denied him the majority needed to win without a runoff.

[2] An investigation found that nearly 400 absentee ballots had been fraudulently cast, including by felons and dead people.

[1][2][3] United States circuit court judge Thomas S. Wilson Jr. threw out the results in the spring of 1998.

He cited "a pattern of fraudulent, intentional and criminal conduct" in the casting of absentee ballots and wrote that "this scheme to defraud, literally and figuratively, stole the ballot from the hands of every honest voter in the city of Miami".

He ordered a new election, but a federal appeals court instead declared Carollo the winner outright.