MARTINEZ, Calif. -- The Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors often begins its weekly meeting with an "inspirational thought." This week's began: "I know that God won't give me more trouble than I can handle."

Stephen L. Weir, the county's clerk-recorder, is already handling plenty. As the person in charge of his county's elections, he has to figure out how to fit all the names of the candidates running in California's gubernatorial recall election on a ballot. The state has certified 135 candidates for the Oct. 7 ballot (see related article). The computer cards used in Mr. Weir's county can hold no more than 47 names.

"This is the biggest controlled mad scramble I've ever been on in my life," he says.

Under the system that Contra Costa usually uses, each voter would have to get at least three ballot cards, which resemble standardized tests used in schools. That could mean trouble, because the machines that read the 3-inch by 8-inch computer cards have no way of knowing whether a voter who filled in the small rectangle by a candidate's name on, say, the third card had already voted on the first or second cards.

Mr. Weir, who has been supervising elections here for 14 years, has already conducted his own recall -- just for the recall. He is setting aside the county's ballot-counting machines and renting out 18 new ones. The new machines have an optical scanner that can read larger ballots accommodating up to 308 names. The cost: about $830,000 -- or approximately what this suburban county east of San Francisco spends to keep six sheriff's deputies on the streets for a year.

With so many Golden State gubernatorial wannabes out there -- ranging from melon-smashing comedian Gallagher to porn king Larry Flynt -- someone's got to figure out how to cram all their names onto ballots that can be accurately counted. Election officials in California's 58 counties are faced with printing, mailing and tabulating millions of ballots under circumstances that would challenge even a certain muscle-bound cyborg played by one of the better-known candidates.

San Francisco briefly considered shrinking the type face on its ballot, which must be printed in three languages. It now plans to print separate ballots in English, Spanish and Chinese. In Santa Cruz county, poll workers have devised a system that relies on pink magic markers.

In the back of Mr. Weir's mind -- and probably the mind of every other election official in California -- is one word: Florida. Everyone is hoping to avoid a repeat of the disputed 2000 presidential election, with its hanging chads and endless recounts. No county wants to be in the center of legal challenges after the election.

Lest he forget his mission, Mr. Weir got a reminder Tuesday from Mark DeSaulnier, chairman of Contra Costa County's board of supervisors. Shortly after approving the emergency authorization to rent the 18 new ballot-counting machines, Mr. DeSaulnier told Mr. Weir: "We look forward to not seeing you on CNN."

A 1911 law allows anyone with $3,500 and the signatures of 65 voters to seek the highest office in the nation's most-populous state. The resulting free-for-all leaves Mr. Weir 54 days to prepare for the onslaught. He has to get his 18 newly rented ballot-scanning machines trucked out from Nebraska. Then he has to test them. He will also need to set up a new vote-counting operation in a county warehouse.

At the same time, Mr. Weir must arrange for ballots to be formatted and printed according to the alphabet lottery that state officials conducted on Monday. The system is intended to ensure candidates whose last names begin with "A" don't have the advantage of always being listed first. The list is different in every state Assembly district, and since Contra Costa is carved into three districts, the county will need three different ballots. He's got to move fast. Absentee ballots must be in the mail in less than four weeks, on Sept. 8.

"Sometimes I get this knot in my stomach," says Mr. Weir, a 54-year-old former mayor who prides himself on being organized. For a local election scheduled for this November, Mr. Weir had his 34-page checklist ready in February. Countless other procedures that Mr. Weir fine-tuned over the years now must be adjusted, down to the shelves in a county warehouse that will hold the larger ballots.

At least six counties, including Los Angeles, will use punch-card ballots similar to those that became notorious in Florida. Last year, the American Civil Liberties Union won a federal court order requiring those counties to replace their punch-card voting systems by the March 2004 presidential primary -- which at the time everyone thought would be the next statewide election. Next week, the ACLU plans to ask the same judge to ban such punch cards in the recall election, even if it means delaying the vote. The punch-card system has one advantage, however: The candidates' names are listed in an accompanying booklet, so there isn't a space problem on the ballot card itself.

Orange County has new touch-screen voting machines widely touted as the way to avoid Florida-type problems. But it doesn't have enough time to train workers to operate them before the Oct. 7 election. Instead, everyone will vote on paper ballots intended to be used only for absentee voters. In all, California estimates the recall will cost between $53 million and $66 million.

For the makers of voting machines, the effort to recall Gov. Gray Davis means opportunity. Louis Dedier, a former California election official, who now is vice president of Election Systems & Software Inc., Omaha, Neb., says he started calling county officials a few weeks ago, offering temporary replacements for voting systems unable to handle so many names. This week, his company landed the Contra Costa contract and similar contracts in two other California counties. He assured county officials the election will "be a real nice smooth process."

Some election officials are similarly laid-back. "I'm confident in the capability of our voters to cast one vote," says Gail Pellerin, election manager for Santa Cruz County. Her county uses the same voting system as Contra Costa, but she says she can protect against people voting on more than one card. Her defense against possible voter fraud: a few dozen pink highlighter markers.

After a voter submits the completed ballots, her poll workers will mark each set of cards with a unique number. If any precinct reports more votes than the number of people who voted, the sets can be reassembled and inspected. Ms. Pellerin says she chose pink because the color is not visible to the optical scanners. "We've tested the pink and it won't affect the voting," she says.