Mike Blake/Reuters
A Florida mail distribution center had “scores of mail-in ballots sitting inside” the facility even as Miami-Dade County officials announced they had finished counting votes for the 2018 midterm election on Friday, the Miami New-Times reports. Photos obtained by the newspaper appear to show a number of ballots sitting inside an Opa-Locka mail distribution center. Two sources claimed “hundreds or thousands of ballots might still be inside,” and others worried the votes had been “sitting inside the mailroom for days or weeks before Election Day.” Elections officials said the ballots in the distribution center were considered late because they had not been delivered to Miami-Dade Elections Department. “We do our best to educate voters that, if you’re voting vote-by-mail, then your ballot had to be at the Elections Department by Tuesday, November 6,” Elections Department spokesperson Suzy Trutie said. “Not everybody mailed back in time.” The U.S. Postal Service told CBS Miami it had “no information to suggest any ballots were not properly handled and provided to local election officials, per our established process.” While Miami-Dade is reportedly a “left-leaning” county, areas of right-wing voters in the area could have had an influence in the extremely thin margins in some of Florida’s statewide races.