hen Courtney Jackson clicked on the CNN.com Web site yesterday and saw that Florida was still a toss-up between George W. Bush and Al Gore, she could have kicked herself.
''I voted in Massachusetts, but I'm from Fort Lauderdale!'' said the Boston University freshman, who favors Bush. ''I thought my vote didn't have much importance.''
Jackson was among several college students wracked with doubt yesterday over the choices they had made on Election Day. For her and others from Florida, the decision to register in Massachusetts - or not to vote at all - stirred queasy feelings with each passing reference to the recount vote in their home state.
''I'll definitely be more motivated to vote next time,'' said Alex Naar, a BU junior from Miami. He said he called a Florida election office too late to get a ballot, and realized only yesterday that his vote - probably for Bush - would have mattered.
''Who knew that it definitely would have helped?'' Naar said.
The presidential balloting Tuesday marked the first time Jackson, Naar, and many other students were eligible to vote, and the aftermath turned the election into a media-driven civics lesson, especially about the Electoral College.
Several blasted it as unfair and unnecessary, dismissing the idea of a state's electoral vote going to Gore or Bush even if the two narrowly split the popular vote. Florida's 25 electoral votes will go to one man, for instance, even though both were drawing about 49 percent of the popular vote yesterday.
''Winning the popular vote but losing the Electoral College is screwy,'' said Kristen Cook, a freshman at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ''It's a breakdown of the system.''
Writing a paper on Francis Bacon Tuesday night while watching the returns on TV, Anna Bursaux began comparing the US electoral college to the popular vote for the presidency in France, where she was raised. A US citizen, she voted here for the first time Tuesday, backing Gore.
''I have lots of trouble understanding it still,'' Bursaux said of the US system. ''The fact that a state would become all Democrat or all Republican in the Electoral College is too black and white.''
Elizabeth Lang, a BU senior, sensed a collective political hangover on campus after many students there were revved up about the election for so long. Even though people had election fatigue, she predicted an outcry if Gore won the popular vote and did not take office.
''It'd be a farce,'' she said.
None of the Nader supporters among two dozen college students interviewed yesterday said they regretted backing a third party, even if it ate into votes for Gore or Bush.
''We need to see a lot more of the third parties,'' said Matthew Carlson, a BU junior from New York. ''It's the only real voice out there.''
The muddled outcome yesterday seemed to belie the legitimacy of polls and pundits in the eyes of some first-time voters.
Luigi Scarcelli, a BU graduate student, worried that the media's early call that Gore had won Florida may have led some Oregon Democrats, thinking the vice President would win, to support Nader or stay home. The winner in that state was still too close to call as of yesterday evening.
Other students said they had been inclined to think the election would be decided quickly, especially since television stations were declaring Florida and other states to be in the Gore or Bush column soon after voting ended.
''The way things are in 2000, with instant information on the Internet and everywhere, we're not used to having to wait for things like this,'' said Cook of MIT.
Despite the frustration, some students were excited about watching what they said was a moment for the history books, when a single state will decide the race. At least a few were dumbstruck.
''My grandfather's from Florida and he's crazy as a loon,'' said David Goldberg, a junior at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. ''He's going to decide the president?''
