EST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Weariness grew into frustration as a middle-aged woman on Team No. 9 slowly counted one more pile of punch cards.
Then, she gave up.
''I've had it,'' she said. ''I'm not coming back. There are some real games going on here.''
The woman, a Republican, complained that another Republican monitoring the hand recount here of more than 462,000 presidential votes kept objecting for no good reason to ballots clearly punched for Vice President Al Gore. The woman told reporters in the media pool that the Republicans were systematically trying to slow down the recount.
Ever since the hand count began Thursday night at the county's hurricane shelter, Democrats have complained that Republicans were trying to stall the recount with arbitrary ballot challenges.
Roughly 1,800 of the first 16,000 ballots recounted were considered questionable and set aside for future counts. Election officials here said Republicans had objected to as many as 50 percent of the ballots in some precincts.
Republicans denied the charges, but they drew a warning early in the morning from the head of the county's elections canvassing board, Judge Charles Burton, a Democrat.
''I'm getting frustrated that they're not making reasonable calls,'' he said. ''They're trying to portray this as hocus-pocus. But there are very few votes that you have to really wonder about.''
Burton said many of the objections have been gratuitous. After board members and lawyers from both parties reviewed the disputed ballots, it became clear only a few were not clearly punched.
Republican officials insist they're trying to curb tampering with the count. Mark Wallace, a Republican attorney representing the Bush campaign, said, ''I think it must be slowed down and done in a more thoughtful way.''
''Obviously, we think the election was over on Election Day,'' said a man from Texas who asked not to be named. ''We're accustomed to charges, and accusations that we're buying time don't mean anything to us.''
Democratic monitors overseeing the mostly tedious count said Republicans have been objecting to every sixth vote for Gore.
''It's absolutely true,'' said Jim Carrigan, a lawyer who flew in from Lynn, Mass. ''It's happened hundreds of times. They're challenging obvious Gore votes, and it's obvious what they're doing.''
At first, Democrats charge, Republicans were seeking to delay the hand count until Florida's secretary of state, Katherine Harris, a Republican and supporter of Governor George W. Bush of Texas, could certify the election without the recount finished.
Now, after the state Supreme Court indefinitely suspended the election certification on Friday, Democrats believe the Republicans are trying to draw out the count in the hope that the longer it gets, the less the public will support it.
''There's no doubt that the Bush camp is trying to maneuver this politically,'' said Ben Kuehne, an attorney for the Democratic Party in Florida. ''It seems to me this is an attempt to keep the Supreme Court from knowing the truth.''
Still, Republicans milling about the chaotic lobby of the Emergency Operations Center joked that the Democrats didn't need their help in stalling the process.
As of yesterday afternoon, only about 25 percent of the county's precincts had been recounted.
With many chairs unoccupied in the auditorium where the counters are poring over stacks of punch cards, the pace is grinding. Burton said it's unlikely the recount would be finished before Thanksgiving.
