The late, great broadcast journalist Tim Russert famously held up a white board in 2000 printed with “Florida, Florida, Florida,” meaning that Florida likely would determine the outcome of that year’s presidential race between Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore.

Boy, howdy! Did it ever!

Here we are. Eighteen years later and Florida has returned to the center of the political stage for all the wrong reasons.

They cannot get the ballots counted properly in Broward County or in Palm Beach County. Two races, one for governor and one for U.S. senator, hang in the balance. The Republicans are leading at the moment: Ron DeSantis for governor and Rick Scott for senator.

Donald Trump, along with Scott, are alleging voter fraud. Trump accuses Democrats of trying to “steal” the election from the GOP.

Hold on here!

They need to count all the ballots. Then we can determine the winners of those key races.

But after that? It seems Florida has a serious, extremely troubling history that needs to be corrected. It seems that these voting irregularities are occurring with far too much frequency in the Sunshine State.

Why in the world does this keep happening in Florida? Why can’t the good folks there conduct an election without this kind of kerfuffle?

Texas has more voters than Florida. So does California. Do we hear of this kind of thing happening in those two bigger states? No! It’s Florida, always Florida, time and again.

I am not prepared to declare there to be fraud taking place. I am sitting far away in Collin County, Texas. I do, though, remain troubled that this kind of mess keeps recurring.

We all ought to value our democratic process too much to stand for such scandalous conduct of this vastly important constitutional exercise.