The three-member board, made up of Supervisor of Elections Joe Scott, a county commissioner and a judge, worked through ballots set aside for problems including signature mismatches and votes cast by residents who died before their mail ballots arrived. Scott summed up the standard the board applied to the latter category: "If it's received before you die, it's accepted. After — it's rejected!"

The review came after Locklin raised alarms Wednesday, when her tally briefly spiked and then fell back on election night. "If they can't explain where 3,000 votes went, they owe me a recount," Locklin said.

The Associated Press told CBS Miami that a data entry error produced the inflated figure for Locklin, which was caught and corrected shortly after it appeared. The episode nonetheless fueled suspicion in a race where every vote margin draws scrutiny.

Election officials in both Broward and Miami-Dade counties said Friday that too few ballots remain outstanding to change the result or meet the threshold for a recount. Scott was blunt about the arithmetic: "If every single ballot was for District 26, it's not enough to change it."

The 26th District stretches across parts of Miami-Dade and Broward counties and has been represented by Diaz-Balart, a veteran Republican incumbent, for more than two decades. Locklin, a first-time Democratic candidate, ran a campaign aimed at flipping the seat.

The canvassing board's decisions are a routine but consequential part of certifying an election, determining which provisional and mail ballots count when signatures or eligibility are in question. With the outstanding pool now largely resolved and both counties signaling the margin will stand, the contest appears headed toward certification with Diaz-Balart ahead — barring an unexpected turn in the remaining tabulation.