(CNN) It's a long-agonized-over machine recount total delivered two minutes too late.

But there's nothing ironic about it -- this is, after all, Florida's Broward County, which has been plagued with issues in its vote-counting efforts for years.

Given that history, it was unsurprising -- but still galling to volunteers -- when the director of elections here revealed that the county had submitted its machine recount data two minutes after the state-mandated 3 p.m. Thursday deadline.

The secretary of state's office did not accept the new numbers and so, after days of painstaking work, Broward's count Thursday remained the same as it was on Saturday, when it submitted its initial unofficial election results.

"Basically, I just worked my ass off for nothing," said Joe D'Alessandro, the director of elections for Broward County.

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