he messy reality of the suddenly controversial American voting system could be found at 4:15 a.m. Friday in the cramped office of the court clerk in Jackson County, Ore.
There, 52 minimum-wage workers finished tabulating about 82,000 mail-in ballots, putting the county among the last districts in the nation to finish counting.
''We had too many people in there,'' clerk Kathy Beckett said. ''They were tripping over each other.''
In fact, Beckett's operation might be considered cutting edge. Oregon was the first state to use an all mail-in ballot. But this innovation left several contests, including the presidential race, undecided for days. And there were mistakes.
Beckett readily confirmed what the nation has realized: The American electoral process is an enormously complex patchwork of archaic counting systems run by harried officials, with minimal oversight and funding.
''People have a tendency to take elections for granted, but it's a very complicated system,'' Beckett said.
Oregon was far from alone. In addition to the Florida snafus, problems turned up in other states, from shifting hours in Missouri to missing ballots in Connecticut to uncounted votes in Massachusetts.
Calls for reform have sounded. The issue is all but certain to be taken up in several state houses, and possibly in state and federal investigations. Americans who clucked at the electoral jumbles in Yugoslavia, Peru, and the Ivory Coast are now looking inward with concern.
It is not without reason, however, that voting is as varied and quirky as are the localities that run it. This makes it almost impossible to manipulate votes from above, as happens in some other countries. And despite this year's furor, it remains an amazing process: a tabulation of votes on thousands of unique races completed by an army of low-paid public servants that is usually completed in hours.
But for now, attention is focused on the shortcomings:
In Massachusetts, 30,000 votes were left uncounted in 51 precincts. Secretary of State William F. Galvin attributed this to human counting errors.
In Detroit, some polling places did not have enough electronic voting pens to service all the voting booths. Local Democrats tried unsuccessfully in court to keep polls open late.
In Oregon, with its all-mail-in system, a flood of last-minute ballots overwhelmed counters, leaving several close races and ballot questions unresolved for 18 hours after polls closed.
In St. Louis, long lines at the end of Election Day prompted Democrats to obtain a court order extending poll hours in the heavily Democratic city for an extra three hours. Republicans got it overturned, but polls in St. Louis remained open an extra hour.
In Connecticut, numerous small towns ran out of paper ballots. Town clerks had to improvise, hindering their ability to check if voters were registered or were voting in the right precinct.
In New Mexico, a computer glitch in the most populous county, Bernalillo, slowed vote counters. As a result, the outcome of the presidential race and several congresssional matchups will not be announced until tomorrow.
Observers of the system said problems like these have occurred for decades. But it took a photo-finish presidential race to bring them to light.
''The problem is that we have a very decentralized election system. You end up with a mishmash of inconsistent procedures or even nonexistant procedures,'' said Darrell West, a political science professor at Brown University. ''It could increase cynicism about politics.''
The process begins in the booths. There are punch cards. There are fill-in-the-bubbles ballots. There are levers. There are on-screen computer ballots. There are keypads. There are old-fashioned `X' marks-the-vote paper ballots. There are mail-in ballots. Each comes with potential for error.
The lever method, for example, was used this year in Boston, Cambridge, and Brookline, among other places. It was first used in Lockport, N.Y., in 1892.
These hulking machines use odometer-like devices to log in each vote. According to Galvin, several people counting votes on Massachusetts' eight ballot measures read the wrong odometers, resulting in the recording of 30,000 voters as showing up but neglecting to vote.
''Minor problems occur from time to time,'' said Galvin, adding that these votes will be counted, while the disputed ballots in Florida probably will not. ''You have a major problem when you have disenfranchisment.''
Even within states, there is variation. Most voting in Massachusetts is done with optical scan, where little bubbles are filled in - much like the SAT exam - and are read by computers. Seventy-nine towns use paper ballots that are hand-counted.
Many are beginning to believe that all elections are somewhat tainted by error. Indeed, most local election officals assume this. But there has not been scientific examination of this error. And officials said there is little they can do.
''Beyond a recognition that people are human, we assume that everything will go properly,'' Galvin said. ''But will people make mistakes? Yeah, sure, that's inevitable.''
In Palm Beach, Fla., some voters, claiming a confusing ballot design, apparently cast their vote for Patrick J. Buchanan rather than Al Gore. Ballot designs are approved by local election commissions, subject to some general guidelines.
Sharon Priest, secretary of state for Arkansas and head of the national organization that represents secretaries of state, said this should not be so. ''I'm one who believes standardization would help. It would be great if the feds would do it,'' she said.
Priest said several Arkansas legislators had contacted her after Election Day, inquiring about tighter state election regulations.
''We're going to look at it, but I would be very surprised if we did it,'' Priest said. ''It would be very expensive.''
Back in Jackson County courthouse in Medford, Ore., Beckett described the chaotic hours after the polls closed, when her team began its 48-hour marathon.
There were two ballots to be counted, one for referendum questions, one for candidates. Then there were the botched ballots sent out to 21,000 people that were missing one of the referendum questions; a third ballot had to be sent to them.
Counting each ballot required nine steps, from sorting them to verifying signatures to logging in votes. All the while, on the other side of the same office, assistant clerks were processing mortgage and deed records.
''It was an awful lot of people in a very small space,'' Beckett said. ''If I had it my way, there's a number of things I'd do differently.''
