Counties have verified more than enough signatures to force Gov. Gray Davis into a historic recall election, perhaps as early as September.

While California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley's office would not confirm the count, independent surveys of county elections officials found Tuesday that recall backers had submitted more than the 897,158 valid signatures required to set an election.

Davis, appearing at a Los Angeles health clinic, said he was prepared to fight.

"If the people want me to present my credentials again, I do not fear them," he said.

Shelley could certify the petitions against fellow Democrat Davis as early as today, ending a rapid drive to place the matter before voters and triggering a dizzying timetable leading to an election.

Potential replacement candidates began readying paperwork for an official candidate filing period that could commence by Friday.

State law directs Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante to set a recall election within 60 to 80 days of when the secretary of state certifies the signatures. Candidates must file within 59 days of an election. If Bustamante called for a 60-day election schedule, elections experts say, replacement candidates would have one day to pay a $3,500 filing fee and gather 65 signatures needed to qualify as candidates.

As the only declared candidates, Rep. Darrell Issa, a San Diego County Republican, and Peter Camejo, a Bay Area money manager and Green Party member, have been preparing for that possibility.

Potential candidates who have not yet declared made similar preparations.

Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger returned to the United States from a tour promoting his new movie, "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines." His strategist, George Gorton, told The Bee, "It seems to me like he's going to run." He said Schwarzenegger has signed legal papers allowing his representatives to take out campaign paperwork on his behalf.

"That way if he's out of the country when this whole thing comes down and he wants to run, he has that ability," Gorton said.

Last year's GOP gubernatorial nominee, Bill Simon, said Tuesday he will open a 2006 campaign account, which would allow him to begin raising money and campaign before a recall election date is set.

State Sen. Tom McClintock's campaign manager, Jon Huey, said the senator had not yet made a decision but that "if we have to move within a 24-hour period, we'll speed up the process."

With polling showing California voters less inclined to recall Davis if they cannot replace him with another Democrat, prominent Democrats have agreed to stay off the recall ballot.

Shelley's Web site reported only 678,472 valid signatures late Tuesday, but independent surveys of county election departments conducted by the Los Angeles Times and the Contra Costa Times showed recall backers had submitted more than enough to force an election.

The Web site also reported 1,156,448 signatures had been counted, and with a reported validity rate around 85 percent, backers would have more than enough to qualify for the ballot.

David Gilliard, the consultant who directed the recall's paid signature-gathering campaign, put some champagne on ice and called in his staff.

"We're very psyched," he said. "We're sitting over here looking at each other trying to figure out how it happened so fast."

With an election looming rapidly, top elections officials said they are worried about a Florida-style fiasco at the polls.

Nine counties are still becoming comfortable with new voting equipment ordered by a court after the 2000 presidential election in Florida forever discredited punch-card voting systems and made "hanging chad" a common term throughout the nation.

"That's something that's been keeping me up late at night and early into the morning," a top state election official said in a background briefing with reporters Tuesday.

"I'm frightened by the potential for possible failure of the election system. ... It's something like you read about in Florida, where the equipment fails ... people want to vote and can't ... the polling places don't open. Any or all of those things."

County election departments will have to prepare for an election in far less time than they usually have. And the Florida debacle could play a direct role in complicating their task.

Nine California counties, encompassing 56 percent of the state's voters, are under orders to update their voting systems by next March as a result of Florida's problems.

Many are now changing over. In some counties, elections staff are not trained to use the new equipment but already have tossed out their old equipment.

"Registrars are very concerned," said the Los Angeles County registrar of voters, Conny McCormack.

"The election is in jeopardy because of the short timelines."

In Sacramento, a statement released by Shelley's office quoted John Mott-Smith, chief of the elections division, as saying that "counties have expressed concerns over such a short time frame for a special recall election."

"Specific issues they have raised include adequate time to print ballots and sample ballots, to test voting equipment, the recruiting and training of poll workers, and finding secure polling places," he said.

Sacramento County's registrar of voters, Ernie Hawkins, echoed those concerns.

"We're going to have some issues that I don't know what the resolution will be," he said.

The county is making the transition from a punch card system, like the one that resulted in hanging chads in Florida, to an optical scan system. But the new system is not ready to use, Hawkins said.

"I'm going back to the Board of Supervisors on Aug. 5 to ask them to allow us to use the old punch card system one more time because we can't get the retrofit on the (new system) in time to assure the accuracy of a vote count for the recall."