ELRAY BEACH, Fla. - A line of seniors snaked around the building and led to a woman hunched over a small table, furiously stamping the stack of papers growing in front of her.
Some struggled forward with walkers and canes, and others complained about the heat, but the mix of snowbirds, northern transplants, and other retirees who live in this subtropical city weren't bothered by the long wait. They were queued up patiently for notary Jeanette Dores, to stamp their complaints about Tuesday's chaotic vote - complaints that could decide who becomes the next president of the United States.
''Senior citizens are supposed to be half dead,'' said Sylvia Tishkevich, 74. ''But look at this turnout. We're not going to stop until we get our votes.''
As court challenges to the Florida vote lingered into a fourth day and officials from both parties fenced over how to resolve the crisis, the pile of statements swearing Palm Beach County residents miscast their votes grew into the thousands. A few miles south in Boca Raton, a small rally of Republicans demanded that the vote stand.
The typically serene county of South Florida, now the eye of the nation's political storm, became more confused and convulsed by the hour.
Florida's 25 electoral votes remained up for grabs even as local officials promised today to start recounting ballots by hand and machine. It will be the third count of votes.
But some residents continued to demand more than a recount. They want a revote, a notion whose legality has divided the voters, party leaders, and constitutional scholars.
''You can recount until the cows come home, it doesn't solve the real problem,'' said Bob Jarvis, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University Law Center in Fort Lauderdale. ''No question that a revote is not a perfect solution. But that doesn't rule it out.''
A circuit court judge in West Palm Beach has suspended the county's ballot from being included in Florida's electoral tally at least until another court hearing on Tuesday.
With a few thousand absentee ballots still to be counted in the state's 67 counties, any attempt to certify whether Al Gore or George W. Bush won Florida will probably be on hold until at least Friday. Whatever happens, legal observers said, the election will remain in court, in a challenge likely to ascend quickly to the Florida Supreme Court.
For their part, Republicans have raised questions about a precinct of a few thousand voters in The Fountains, a country club in Palm Beach County where Gore gained 345 votes after the first recount. That precinct's presidential vote came up blank Tuesday after election officials inexplicably didn't include its results in the county's overall total.
''There are many questionable things going on right now,'' said Robbie Davis, 40, a Bush supporter from West Palm Beach. ''The Democrats are trying to make the vote come out as they want it.''
At the rally of Democrats in Delray, however, thousands of residents insisted they're just seeking to ensure that their ballots reflect their votes. The now notorious ''butterfly'' punch card led many in the crowd, most of them Jews, to vote for Patrick J. Buchanan, a candidate most of them consider anti-Semitic.
''Arafat would have gotten more votes here than Buchanan,'' said Burt Aaronson, a county commissioner. ''The ballot was illegal and we must have the right to vote in a democracy.''
Holding up signs such as ''I fought in 2 wars and my vote don't count'' and ''We're going to keep at this until there is a fair and honest vote,'' the protesters promised not to back down until a new vote is called.
Lining up with enthusiasm to have their complaint forms notarized, the senior citizens made clear that their age had not diminished their intelligence, even if they did inadvertently vote for the wrong candidate.
''I have a master's degree from Harvard,'' said Harold Marsh, 80, a retired banker. ''I'm a very careful person and I'm not the type of person to make a mistake. The mistake was the ballot. And we must correct that mistake.''
