EST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Homemade signs in hand, the housekeeper, the stockbroker, and the retired dentist yesterday demanded a new election, a clamor that spread across the county and threatened to further delay the naming of the nation's next president.
Thousands of like-minded residents - many of them furious over apparent voting irregularities, all of them insistent on a revote - attended rallies around Palm Beach County, at the center of the state's election controversy.
Jews and Catholics, blacks, and whites, the wealthy and the poor, even Republicans, came together in a rare display of unity in a county known for the dividing lines of walled-off communities.
''I am not defending Bush; I am not defending Gore,'' Cecilia Campoverde, a professor of social work and a registered Republican, said at the largest of yesterday's demonstrations. ''I am defending the system. It didn't work for us and we have to do something about it.''
With only a couple of hundred votes out of almost 6 million cast separating Al Gore and George W. Bush in the ongoing automatic recount and absentee ballots still arriving from overseas, residents filed additional lawsuits calling for the county to nullify Tuesday's results and set a date for a new election. Similar legal action is expected throughout the state after claims of voting irregularities were lodged from the Panhandle to Miami.
In Tallahassee, William Daley, Gore's campaign chairman, called for a hand count of a representative sample of ballots in four Florida counties: Palm Beach, Miami-Dade, and Broward in South Florida, and Volusia in the northeast. Republican leaders also called for a second recount in Palm Beach County, where Gore extended his lead over Bush by 751 votes. Both the hand count and the recount are slated for tomorrow morning.
With a miniscule margin separating the candidates, the presidency of the United States will come down to the remaining overseas absentee ballots. The state officials have given varying estimates of the number outstanding, ranging from 1,000 to 5,000. The ballots must arrive in Florida by Nov. 17 to be valid.
''Technicalities should not determine the president of the United States,'' Daley said. ''The will of the people should.''
Although Milton Miller, a retiree from Boca Raton, withdrew his lawsuit from federal court yesterday, Democratic officials promised to support legal action that would ensure everyone could vote for the candidate of their choice.
While Gore kept quiet, national party leaders and lawyers descended on Tallahassee to investigate voter complaints and consider their own options.
Despite efforts to create an easier-to-read ballot for the county's large elderly population, local election officials from both parties approved a special butterfly-style ballot that apparently confused many voters and possibly violated state election laws.
Instead of punching the ballot for Gore, many say they mistakenly voted for Patrick J. Buchanan, the Reform Party candidate, who won more votes in the traditionally Democratic county than in any other Florida county. More than 4 percent of Palm Beach County voters accidentally cast two presidential votes, and 19,120 ballots were thrown out.
''There's a substantial basis for thinking that something should be done legally,'' said Terence Anderson, a University of Miami law professor. ''The remedy is what no one knows.''
For Andre Fladell, a Delray Beach chiropractor, the answer was to join with two other residents to file a lawsuit in Palm Beach County Court. The suit seeks to void the election and force a new vote.
''I've lived in this county for many years, and I know it's improbable that so many people, many of them Jews, would vote for an anti-Semitic candidate like Buchanan,'' he said.
A 1998 ruling by the Florida Supreme Court set the current standard for how to judge whether elections are valid. The court ruled that a vote could be declared invalid even in the absence of fraud or intentional wrongdoing. All that must be shown is the possibility that the will of the people was thwarted.
Legal observers said evidence suggests that Fladell and others who are suing Palm Beach County and election supervisor Teresa LePore, among others, have a strong case in calling for a revote. Still, with the presidency in the balance, they called it unlikely that a state judge would void the vote.
Lawyers representing Miller, who withdrew his federal lawsuit yesterday, said the lifelong Democrat had decided to let Gore take on the legal fight. Miller's decision avoided an emergency court hearing before a Reagan appointee, US District Judge Kenneth Ryskamp.
''They weren't going to get anywhere with Ryskamp,'' said Robert Jarvis, a professor of constitutional law at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale.
Bruce Rogou, a lawyer representing LePore, said he expected additional lawsuits to be filed and heard in circuit county court, where they properly belong. ''Anyone who thinks there will be a speedy resolution to this is engaged in wishful thinking,'' he said.
Not everyone in the county, however, endorsed the idea of a new election. County Commissioner Merry McCarty said voters get just one chance and must live with their mistake. ''I don't think there should be a remedy,'' she said. ''And if there is a remedy, it should be in future elections.''
At a rally in Boca Raton in the southern part of Palm Beach County, a region better known for gated communities and cautious drivers than political protest, hundreds of disgruntled voters vented their anger by holding up hand-made signs such as ''Misleading Ballots Are Not Democracy'' and by shouting ''Re-vote, Re-vote!''
Crowding the entrance to one of the county's many malls, 73-year-old Arthur Seiler said he could not believe the election might be determined based on confusing ballots. ''I'm a cum laude graduate from Harvard, and I think I didn't vote right,'' said Seiler, a retired dentist and registered Republican who intended to vote for Gore. ''This is a disgrace. I feel completely disenfranchised.''
The day's larger rally was in West Palm Beach, where the Rev. Jesse Jackson addressed more than 5,000 residents. Like Jackson, most of the protesters supported Gore. Still, they insisted that their position was not partisan but a matter of fairness. Some Republicans who came with Bush-Cheney placards took the same position.
''The issue today is not about black and white; it's about wrong and right,'' Jackson said. In denouncing the ballot design, Jackson noted, ''If you're driving down the road and your wheels are not aligned properly, you have a wreck. We had a wreck here in West Palm.''
In the packed crowd, some of the talk spun off into hyperbole: bus driver Robert Pierson compared county residents to Kosovars and a woman shouted her demand for international monitors in the next election. But most people sounded genuinely aggrieved and disappointed.
''I feel like I've been cheated,'' said Darryl Fleming, 34, an automobile mechanic who meant to vote for Gore and took an unpaid day off to rally for a revote.
''I remember now pushing the [wrong] hole. My vote doesn't count, and something's not right with that.''
