The race for governor that simply won't end

"There are safeguards and policies to protect the right of the voters," Ms. Nacke says. "We've been doing provisional ballots since the '70s. A lot of states are just now learning how to use provisional ballots."

David Olson, political scientist at the University of Washington and an expert on electoral fraud, insists, "We're nowhere near an objective, nonpartisan election in America. The Help America Vote Act [passed in response to the 2000 presidential election] is the most feeble, fleeting attempt at voting reform."

Professor Olson decries states such as New Jersey, where he says "the graveyard still votes," as well as Florida and Ohio, where he points to precincts that counted more votes than registered voters as evidence of credibility deficits if not outright corruption. Yet, he adds, "The election process in Washington has been examined with a microscope and the elections are coming out pretty clean. There's been no skulduggery here - so it is possible to have clean elections in America."

More interesting, Olson says, is what the close vote says about Evergreen State politics: "It's not one-party dominant, like most states," he says. "Races in most states are a foregone conclusion. But here, you see these enormous swings: John Kerry carrying the state handily. Sen. Patty Murray carrying the state handily. But Dino Rossi essentially battling Chris Gregoire to a draw."

After a bitter, divisive campaign, the two candidates have been cautiously gracious. Even though Mr. Rossi began assembling his staff a week ago, which some saw as presumptuous, his 261-vote margin is nothing a banker would stake with a loan. In 2000, for instance, a recount was ordered in the US Senate race when Democrat Maria Cantwell held a 1,953-vote lead over Republican Sen. Slade Gorton.

When that recount concluded, Ms. Cantwell had picked up 177 votes and Mr. Gorton lost 99. This 276-vote swing came with 356,000 fewer total votes than were cast this year, so the possibility of a Governor Gregoire is far from implausible.

Phil Ager, a retired music professor who now builds furniture, says people in his north central Washington community have been silent about the recount, except to express amazement at the closeness of the vote. "People don't talk politics anymore, except with people they agree with. You don't talk about it in the café. There's just the hate letters in the papers," he says, adding, "It wasn't always that way."

"The language of the campaigns has escalated in a way that has sort of brought out the worst in people," says Mr. Ager, who lives in Winthrop, a village in the picturesque Methow Valley. "It's really divided communities - and families."

On Vashon Island, a Seattle suburb, Michael Meade sees the recount in mythic ways. An internationally renowned mythologist and storyteller, Mr. Meade says the recount provides only half an answer. "It's not simply whether your vote counts or doesn't; it's that it doesn't count enough," Meade argues. "Whenever a group is formed by a crisis, they either pull together or divide. And this culture is dividing."

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