The federal appeals court decision stopping the California recall election in mid-stream is sure to have many effects on the outcome of the contest, some of them perhaps more significant than any that would have resulted from allowing the election to continue with the use of punch-card voting systems in six counties.

Several possible scenarios will play out over the next weeks or months, and some might counteract each other by election day, whenever that might be. But even "election day" is a misnomer since this election, with mail-in ballots expected to exceed 25 percent of the votes cast, is already well under way.

In the short term, watch for a significant voter backlash. Voters like to vote, they like choices and they don't like courts stopping them or overturning what they do. Many voters will see the federal court ruling as part of the same institutional arrogance that they already hate in their state government. This frustration could well increase support for the recall.

It also won't be lost on voters that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in general is known as the most liberal federal appeals court in the nation, and that all three justices on this panel were appointed by Democrats.

Although Gov. Gray Davis was not a party to this case, he filed a similar lawsuit over the summer and has supported the idea of delaying the election.

Backers of the recall have already asked why, if the current voting technology was good enough to elect Davis to statewide office five times, it is not good enough to recall him. Some will think the fix is in.

As the parties wait to see whether the U.S. Supreme Court will intervene to reverse this ruling, the campaign will be in a state of suspended animation. The candidates must continue as if nothing has happened because they cannot afford to lose a week of campaigning with just three weeks to go. But the voters might tune them out a bit, since they will be hearing on the news and reading in their newspapers that the election has been stopped.

If the election is scrapped and restarted, Davis will probably gain some advantage from the delay.

Early enthusiasm for the recall, to the extent that it was driven by anger, might well subside with time. And the composition of the electorate on March 2, when Democrats will be choosing a presidential nominee while President Bush runs unopposed in the Republican primary, should favor Davis.

But there are other factors that could work against him. A highly unpopular bill he just signed to allow illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses is facing a referendum. If that qualifies for the ballot, the question will be put to the voters on March 2. It could become an integral part of the campaign debate and remind voters frequently of something they don't like about Davis.

Other reminders will be arriving daily in their mailboxes. The car tax increase Davis engineered this summer is just now taking effect. The tax bills go out on the anniversary of the first time motorists registered their cars. That means each month roughly one in 12 California car owners gets a bill with the car levy tripled. By March, more than half the voters will have felt this pain.

Then there is the state budget. Davis promised earlier this year not to sign a budget without significant reform to fix the structural problems in state and local finance. He also pledged to force the Legislature in August to deal with the remaining $8 billion to $10 billion gap between spending and revenues. He did neither.

Yet on Jan. 10, Davis is required by the constitution to propose a balanced budget for the next fiscal year, which he can only do by endorsing significant new taxes or deep spending cuts, or a combination of the two. That's not likely to endear him to voters who already blame Davis for allowing the state's fiscal mess to spin out of control.

If the national economy improves but California's does not, that will hurt Davis further. But if California starts to get healthy, the growth could help him. We won't know until it happens.

On the Republican side, a delay would mean that actor Arnold Schwarzenegger has to struggle with his last remaining major Republican opponent, Sen. Tom McClintock, for a while longer. Conventional wisdom is that Schwarzenegger will suffer because his campaign was designed to be a short-run performance. But the delay might also help him if he is able to use the time to show voters that he has a few substantive ideas about how to turn the state around.

It's far too early to tell which of these factors will emerge as the most important in the weeks ahead and ultimately shape the outcome of the election. The one thing we do know about this unprecedented campaign is that predictions tend to be out of date almost before they make it into print. Any made quickly based on Monday's court ruling will likely meet the same fate.