MIAMI — Elections officials in nine Florida counties are still counting absentee ballots, even though the presidential race has already been decided.

President Obama held a slim lead in Florida early Wednesday, but he didn’t need the largest swing state to win re-election. Instead, he captured several other battleground states.

In Florida, the race was too close to call as 200,000 votes had yet to be counted. Obama’s lead was much less than that — about 50,000 ballots.

Long lines at the polls and last-minute absentee ballots prevented votes from being counted in some places. Miami-Dade elections officials counted through the night and had about 20,000 absentee ballots left to count Wednesday. Pinellas County officials say they’ll reconvene Wednesday at 9 a.m. to tally more than 9,000 absentee ballots received on Election Day.

–AP

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