AUSTIN, Texas -- For those in favor of having this argument like grown-ups, some history may be helpful.

The punch-card voting system has been a consistent election problem for the last 30 years. About 37 percent of Americans still vote on the rickety little plastic tables, punching holes in cards. (Those present at the dawn of the computer era will recall the old "Do Not Fold, Spindle or Mutilate" cards, but you'll have to explain them to your children.)

The cards are then run through machines that are notoriously error-prone -- and, as writer Ronnie Dugger has been pointing out for years, also highly susceptible to manipulation.

None of this is new information, nor has it appeared only after this close election. Dugger wrote a long article for the Nov. 7, 1988, issue of The New Yorker about the potential for fraud and the many proofs of error by this early, proto-computer voting system. The 1988 article contained, among other information, a detailed description of how to rig a Votomatic counting machine.

Exactly this time a year ago, a truly prescient person monitoring bus, car and plane traffic into the city of Seattle could have predicted that Al Gore's presidential bid faced serious trouble on its left. The mostly young people pouring up Interstate 5 from Oregon and California and other states were the green street warriors who had managed by Nov. 30 to paralyze downtown Seattle and shut down the opening ceremonies of the World Trade Organization (WTO) conference. And these same young people made up the core organizers of Ralph Nader's Green Party candidacy, which denied Al Gore the crucial margin in Florida and New Hampshire.

As the WTO delegates abandoned Seattle in defeat at the end of that tumultuous week last December, many on the left hailed the coming of age of a new coalition. Among its supposed components: the militant greens in the form of Earth First!, Rainforest Action and Direct Action Network; more mainstream green groups such as the Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth; Ralph Nader's citizen's trade campaign; labor's legions mustered in Seattle under the banners of the AFL-CIO.

Five fine specimens of Meleagris gallopavo (wild turkey to you) wandered onto my property here in Humboldt county, northern California, a few days ago. I assume they forgot to check the California Fish and Game calendar which permits a two week window for wild turkey hunters before Thanksgiving. Out came my 12-gauge, and I loosed off a shot, which at some 100 feet did no discernible damage, and after a brief bout of what-the-hell-was-that, the turkeys continued to forage. A fusillade of two more shots finally brought down a 14-pounder. I hung him for four days, plucked him, and by Thanksgiving's end, he'll be history. This was all easier than sporting manuals suggest, where hunters take enormous trouble to decoy the turkeys with fake gobbles.

Wild turkeys haven't been seen in California since the Cenozoic era, but in recent years, two ranchers in my valley imported a few, and now they've begun to appear in our neighborhood in substantial numbers. I've heard reports of flocks of up to a 100 wild turkeys 15 miles up the Mattole river around Honeydew, an impressive quantity, though still far short of the 1,000 birds counted in one day by two hunters in New England in 1630.

AUSTIN, Texas -- I'd say Jebbie Bush has a problem. Not that he didn't have one before, but now he is in a dill pickle.

The R's best strategy at this point is to make the hand recount process into the zoo that they have been claiming it is for two weeks. Chaos! Unleash the dogs of war! Contest every ballot! Foul it up past the deadline! Protest every dimpled, preggers, hanging, swinging, light-shining-through chad in the entire bunch!

Scream, yell and threaten myocardial infarction over any chad that lands on the floor, on the grounds that it clearly constitutes electoral fraud -- and besides, someone might eat it!

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's problem with this strategy is that it would rather clearly indicate that his state is so loopy that it can't conduct a simple hand recount. This whole thing is a public relations disaster for Florida, which has now eclipsed, temporarily, both Texas and California as the most bonkers place in the nation.

AUSTIN, Texas -- OK, everybody, you know the law. If you don't vote, you can't complain. So get out and do it.

Voting whitens your teeth and sweetens your breath, and people who vote have better sex lives. This has been extensively studied, and all the researchers agree. However, there are also new studies strongly suggesting a causal link between voting and weight loss. Yes, going to the polls is more effective than dieting.

Besides, this thing is tighter than a tick -- I mean, your vote COULD make the difference. Honest to Pete, this is historic.

You may wonder why I am trying to inveigle you into participating in what we laughingly refer to as the democratic process. I know all the arguments against it. Don't vote -- it only encourages them. If the gods had meant for people to vote, they would have given us candidates. What is this geekfest? They're all lying. If I actually vote for one of them, won't I be responsible for what happens?

In regard to that last question, the answer is "no" -- you can only be held legally responsible for the government of the United States if you DON'T vote.