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TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - Florida elections might once have been the stuff of late-night comedy monologues, but for sheer entertainment value the Sunshine State can't hold a dimpled chad to what's going in California these days.

Floridians, like the rest of America, are watching with bemusement - and perhaps even a tinge of empathy - as the California governor's race seems to get more, um, unconventional with each passing newscast.

Action star Arnold Schwarzenegger, former child star Gary Coleman and porno mogul Larry Flynt are among the 135 candidates who have qualified to run in an Oct. 7 recall election to replace Gov. Gray Davis, who has fallen out of favor.

The nation's focus on an election somewhere else is just fine with most Floridians, whose ability to count and follow simple instructions was questioned daily by commentators and comedians during a five-week recount that secured the White House for George W. Bush in 2000.

"It'll get them off our backs for a change," said Julian Pleasants, a University of Florida history professor who served on a state committee to figure out what to do with the historic ballot cards and equipment used in the 2000 election.

"I'm just glad it's away from here," said Dick Tolson, a 73-year-old retired Navy officer from Pensacola. "I feel sorry for them because they have a trying time ahead of them and they'll hear California mentioned like Florida was."

Better them than us, said Carlos Martinez, 32, of Miami Lakes.

"I am glad that it's taking the spotlight away," he said. "It'd be horrible if it happened here. I mean, don't they have a pit bull running for governor?"

The pit bull actually didn't qualify, but Coleman, the diminutive former "Diff'rent Strokes" star did, a fact duly noted by Florida Gov. Jeb Bush when he was asked about the election recently.

"I'm glad that Gary Coleman lives in California," said Bush, tongue firmly in cheek. "A guy like me that believes in limited government probably would have a tough time against a fellow like that because he probably symbolizes smaller government."

Gov. Bush, incidentally, will never have to worry about a recall election; Florida law doesn't allow it.

In 2000, the state's punch card ballots were at the heart of the cliffhanger election and the ensuing legal fight between George W. Bush - the Florida governor's older brother - and then-Vice President Al Gore. Bush eventually won Florida, and thus the White House, by 537 votes.

By the time the Supreme Court got involved and made its crucial 5-4 decision, virtually everyone in the nation had heard of chads, undervotes, overvotes, voting irregularities and Secretary of State Katherine Harris, who was later elected to Congress.

The Florida debacle led to a major overhaul of the state's voting system and shone a spotlight on similar problems with voting systems across the nation.

Florida lawmakers in 2001 outlawed punch-card ballots, created new standards for recounts and provided a definition for what a vote is. Most Floridians are now voting on touchscreen systems; the rest use optical scan ballots.

A survey by CalTech and MIT found 6 percent of votes cast nationwide in the 2000 presidential election may not have been counted because of problems with antiquated systems. Punch-card machines - which will be used by 44 percent of California voters on Oct. 7 - are the subject of a federal challenge to the election by the American Civil Liberties Union, which says they have twice the error rate of other systems.

Elections officials nationwide will watch the California vote, expected to be one of the most scrutinized since Congress set aside $3.9 billion for states to modernize voting systems with paperless terminals. As many as 75 percent of voters nationwide will cast ballots electronically by 2010.

Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio, who was the elections supervisor in Hillsborough County at the time, bristles at the suggestion of similarities between the California election and what happened in Florida.

"In California, there doesn't seem to be too much concern about who the governor is," Iorio scoffed. "There's almost a comical nature to it all, and I didn't find the 2000 presidential experience in Florida to be comical. It was serious business."

With some California counties still using a punch card system, plus the large number of candidates on the ballot, Iorio said irregularities are inevitable.

"Might as well get the attorneys lined up right now," she said.

Barbara Gregory, 56, of Cantonment, suggested that we give California a break.

"I feel people don't need to be laughed at," she said. "We didn't like it, and I don't think people in California would like to be laughed at because of this."

By most accounts, Floridians have put the 2000 election debacle behind them and moved on. Barry Richard, a Tallahassee lawyer who represented George W. Bush through most of the high-profile arguments in the recount case, likened it to surviving a hurricane or other major disaster.

"Those kinds of events create camaraderie, because we all went through it together and survived it together," Richard said, noting that the problems in Florida brought similar problems to light in many other states.

"We just chalked it up as one of those things we went through together and moved on. It remains to be seen whether California will come out of it that way."

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