According to recent polls, most California voters -- as many as 19 out of 20 -- know how they will vote Oct. 7 on the question of recalling Gov. Gray Davis. That display of certainty is a sign that a lot of citizens don't understand yet how the recall election will work. Because if they did and had thought a while about the implications, many more Californians would be giving pollsters another answer: It depends.

As the accompanying box explains, the recall is the most complicated political puzzle California's statewide voters have ever faced. It requires voting on two questions, not just one. Question 1: Do I want to recall Gray Davis? Question 2: If Gray Davis is recalled, which of 135 candidates on the ballot do I want to replace him?

Logically, those votes are separate and distinct. In real political life, however, they are intertwined. For many Californians, how they vote on Question 1 will ultimately depend on who they expect will prevail on Question 2.

This uncertainty will not afflict everyone, of course. Some Californians will vote against the recall on principle. Some will be people who, like conservative columnists George Will and William Safire, regard the recall as plebiscitarian excess to be shunned at all costs.

Others will reject recall as a partisan exercise, destabilizing to the state's politics. Still others will vote to keep Davis because they like him and his policies.

On the pro-recall side, some voters, marching under the slogan "anybody but Davis," will vote for recall without regard for who might succeed the governor, even if it means electing a stripper whose greatest political talent is giving lap dances.

But as in normal elections, the issue for many voters will be more pragmatic: Which vote leaves me and the state better off from my political perspective?

In a normal election between two major party candidates, that question is easy to answer. If candidate A is closer to your views -- or just a lesser evil than candidate B -- voting for A moves you toward your goal.

But the recall is trickier. Suppose you are one of the Republicans who make up about two-thirds of the voters who tell pollsters they will vote for recall. Will you still feel the same way on Oct. 7 if pre-election polls show that recalling Davis, a centrist Democrat, will put a politically stronger and more liberal Democrat in the governor's office?

Or suppose you are a voter who opposes the recall on principle. Will you continue to stand on principle even if polling tells you that the likely replacement governor is someone you regard as more capable and closer to your values than Davis?

In other words, the recall election will be less like choosing between two job offers than trying to decide whether to leave your current job when you don't have another job firmly lined up and don't know if the next job will be better or worse.

To make a choice like that in the face of uncertainty, it makes sense for voters to have as much information as possible. In the recall, as in other elections, that means finding out as much as possible about the candidates.

But to be a smart voter in this election also means waiting until closer to Oct. 7 -- forget those absentee ballots, or at least hang on to them -- before you make a final decision on Question 1, in the hope that the campaign and the polls supply better data about the likely and most desirable outcome of Question 2. That's what we intend to do before we make our recommendations. A decision like this is too important to rush.