IF one of the more liberal areas of Florida didn't add negative votes for Gore it might have made a difference too. There are a number of local rumors floating around that physical ballot boxes "ended up in the Halifax River" too according to locals, but we'll leave rumors aside and stick to just the "Volusia Error" as an example of voting anomalies in the I-4 corridor since it is well documented. The Panhandle made no difference. Keep in mind few people live in the panhandle that are actually in Central time and vote in Florida. The voting recounts were due to anomalies in metropolitan left-leaning areas, and to set the record straight Gore wanted a Statewide recount but the court ruling was that it wasn't required.
Gore requested recounts in only 4 counties. "Gore requested manual recounts in four Florida counties: Volusia, Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade, which are counties that traditionally vote Democratic and would be expected to garner more votes for Gore. Gore did not, however, request any recounts in counties that traditionally vote Republican." That's from wikipedia but you can find lots of other cites if you want.
I agree that there were only a few votes in the panhandle that would have been in the majority for Bush. IIRC, it was projected 10k to 20k. Not many in the overall scheme of things. However, when a recall is decided by a few hundred votes adding ten to twenty thousand to one side makes a big difference.