If no agreement on how to proceed is reached soon, two grim scenarios are likely to unfold. First, a large portion of the electorate will not accept the victor as having actually won -- an outcome that could permanently mar our faith in the democratic process. Second, the bitterness between the two parties will reach such extreme, Hatfield and McCoy levels that they won't be able to work together at all, bringing Congress to a grinding halt.

Fortunately, a fair and simple solution is at hand. Both parties should immediately agree to manual recounts -- not just in the four Democratic-leaning Florida counties for which the Gore camp has requested recounts, but in every county in the state, including those that skew Republican. In addition, to remove any possible doubt about the outcome, it should be agreed that manual recounts will be allowed in other states where the margin of victory was hair-thin, if they are requested by either side. Finally, it should be agreed that neither camp will bring any other legal challenges to the election. Troubling allegations have been raised of fraud, voter intimidation, attempts to suppress the black vote and other serious offenses, but in the interests of closure the Democrats should rule out future litigation on those issues now.

This proposal -- a version of which the New York Times endorsed today -- is the only one that will allow the winner of this extraordinary election to assume the office with a sense of legitimacy. And it will erase the missteps both sides have made so far.

The Democrats committed the first foul when they threatened to bring lawsuits claiming that the now-notorious "butterfly ballot" was illegal. These threats were obviously part of a two-track strategy (if they win on the merits, they'll bag the legal remedy) and they haven't done anything to act on them yet, but nonetheless the idea of challenging the ballot is rash and violates a fundamental principle of fairness: Your voting intentions don't get to count, only your actions.

Democratic partisans like attorney Laurence Tribe and Times columnist Anthony Lewis argue that every citizen has the right to have his or her vote correctly counted, especially with the fate of the nation and much of the world hanging on just a few hundred votes. But the unfortunate truth is that mistakes are part of the electoral process -- and to overturn that essential principle simply because the vote happens to be mind-bogglingly close would be to, in effect, change the rules of the game after the game has begun. In this case, the compelling principle that "every citizen's vote deserves to be heard" is trumped by a more basic principle: The rules are the rules.

If at the end of the recounts and absentee ballots, George Bush turns out to have been elected because a couple of thousand elderly Democrats in Florida couldn't figure out how to vote correctly, it will be surreal, it will be Ionesco-like, it will be agonizing for Gore supporters. But it will only be unfair in a metaphysical sense, and metaphysical unfairness and 60 cents will buy you a candy bar. If many Americans subsequently want to put a mental asterisk next to a Bush presidency in their record books, they can go right ahead. But they have no right to say the election was stolen from them -- in one of the football analogies that this first instant-replay election constantly conjures up, they will have fumbled it themselves. Let's not forget that it was a Democratic official who commissioned and approved the controversial Palm Beach ballot. Surely, in the event of a Republican victory, both sides can agree on one simple precept: George W. Bush was elected because life isn't fair.

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