ASHINGTON - After not having had to worry about the Electoral College for a good 112 years, Americans may soon get a civics lesson in how a presidential candidate who wins the most votes isn't necessarily the one who moves into the White House.
That was the fate of Grover Cleveland, a Democrat who got more popular votes but not a majority of the electoral votes in 1888. And it could happen to Al Gore if his slim lead in the national vote holds up but George W. Bush is declared the winner of Florida's 25 electoral votes after a recount.
There's a buzz in some circles that Gore partisans might try to persuade electors in states that Bush carried to break their commitment and vote for Gore when they meet to elect the president on Dec. 18. Walter Berns, an expert on the Electoral College, calls a hunt for rogue electors the ''worst-case scenario.''
''God forbid that happens; we will then have a constitutional crisis that will put this country in a third-world category where elections are decided in the streets,'' said Berns, an emeritus professor of political science at Georgetown University. ''It is largely up to Al Gore himself to see that that doesn't happen.''
In a brief statement yesterday, Gore said he believed ''in the rule of law'' and intended to follow the Constitution faithfully. ''Despite the fact that Joe Lieberman and I won the popular vote, under our Constitution, it is the winner of the Electoral College that will be the next president,'' Gore said in Nashville.
Observers say it is unlikely that Gore supporters would be able to woo Bush electors even if they tried. In 24 states, including Florida, electors are bound to support the candidate who won the state's popular vote. In six states, they can be fined if they break the pledge.
Moreover, electors are appointed by state parties and tend to be partisan loyalists who want their own candidate to be president. Every state has two slates of electors, one Republican, one Democratic, and voters are actually casting their ballots for them when they go to the polls on election day.
In 1988, a Democratic elector from West Virginia switched his preferences, voting for Governor Michael S. Dukakis as vice president and Texas Senator Lloyd Bentsen as president.
Scholars say that in the Electoral College's 200-year history, no electoral switch has ever changed the presidential outcome.
The electors, meeting in their state capitals, vote separately for the president and vice president. Each must receive an absolute majority, or 270 votes.
By late yesterday, Bush had won 29 states for 246 electoral votes. Gore had won 19 states plus the District of Columbia for 260. Oregon was too close to call, but its 7 votes would not put either candidate over the top. The prize both candidates continued to fight for was Florida, with 25 electoral votes.
If Florida's electors were not able to participate on Dec. 18 - which would be a possibility if the Gore camp went to court over irregularities in Florida - either Congress would have to change the Electoral College meeting date or the presidential election could be thrown into the House of Representatives.
Under the Constitution, when no candidate receives an absolute majority in the Electoral College, the House selects the president in early January (with each state delegation casting one vote) and the Senate picks the vice president.
''We would have a very, very difficult problem on our hands,'' said Norman Ornstein, a congressional scholar. ''I don't think anybody wants this stuck in limbo until January.''
With all precincts reporting unofficial results, Gore was ahead in the national popular vote, 48,591,357 to Bush's 48,421,815 votes. Three times in US history a presidential candidate has lost the popular vote but has won the Electoral College. The last time was in the 1888 election, when Benjamin Harrison defeated Cleveland, the incumbent.
What looks like a constitutional quirk was intended by the Founding Fathers. They created the Electoral College in part to guarantee that small states, whose sparse populations are overrepresented in the Electoral College, would have a say in the determining who the president would be.
Bush got his 246 electoral votes with lots of small states, plus Texas and its 32 votes. Gore brought in the big states - California, New York, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Wisconsin.
The result is certain to make Americans wonder: Is the Electoral College antiquated and unfair?
''I have absolutely no doubt that there will be legislation in the next session of Congress calling for the abolition or reform of the Electoral College,'' said Richard Semiatin, a political scientist at American University. ''Some will try, and it will fail.''
Pollsters have very little data on what Americans think about the Electoral College, since it has not been an issue in their lifetimes. Karlyn Bowman, a poll analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, said that in a 1999 Roper Survey asking respondents for one thing they could change about the political system, only 2 percent said the Electoral College.
''My sense is that most Americans will go about their business during a disorderly transfer of power, and they will conclude that the system has worked once again,'' Bowman said.
But Andrew Kohut, who directs polling for the Pew Research Center, says voters may be less exercised about Gore's lead in the popular vote than about how the Florida recount is handled.
''The public outrage could develop over the specifics in Florida,'' Kohut said. ''If the public feels that in some way the questions about the vote there have not been resolved, and particularly if the losing candidate goes away mad, it could create a pretty sour taste in the mouths of Americans as the winning candidate becomes president.''
