The 1997 Miami mayoral election took place on November 4 and November 13, 1997, to elect the mayor of Miami, Florida. It is known for being being overturned due to electoral fraud.[1]
In the first round, incumbent Joe Carollo won 51.4% of ballots cast at the polls, while his main opponent, former Mayor Xavier Suarez, won 61.5% of absentee ballots. In total, Suarez had a slim 155-vote lead. Since no candidate received a majority, a runoff election was held, which Suarez won. 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 in favor of Suarez, 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". Wilson ruled that there was no evidence Suarez had known about the fraud. He ordered a new election, but a federal appeals court instead declared Carollo the winner outright.[1][2][4]
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