Would these traces cause a short?
Those "extra connections" you mention, are (as Hearth said in comments) part of a "thermal relief pad".

I've cropped part of your photo showing the pads for C8, and marked the "extra connections" below. That thermal relief pad is probably the end of the capacitor connected to ground (we don't have enough context in the original photos to be sure, but it's typical of a ground plane).

The purpose of that type of pad is to thermally separate that solder pad from the large ground plane. It isn't needed on the other end of C8, as the other end connects to a normal track, not a large copper area:



As explained in the Wikipedia article linked above, using thermal relief pads for component connections to large copper areas (e.g. ground / power planes) mean it's much easier to make a good solder joint, as you don't have to heat large copper areas up to soldering temperature.


  do you think that they could cause the diode or cap to be short circuited when connected?


They don't cause an unintentional short, since all of the "spokes" connect the same two points: (a) the solder pad (for that end of C8, in the example photo) and (b) the ground plane.

Or, if it's easier for you to think of it this way, those spokes are intentional shorts between points that should be connected anyway !

If it was a normal pad, not a "thermal relief pad", then there wouldn't be any gaps in the ground plane between those marked arrows, and there would be more copper joining that end of C8 to the ground plane.