For nine days straight, the nation’s TV sets have poured forth images of every party hack, publicity-mad exhibitionist and just plain bungler who either lives in Florida or is just passing through. By now, most Americans have identified one single, surpassingly aggravating image that really sets them off; the visual equivalent of nails on a blackboard.

It’s a personal choice. It may be former secretaries of state Baker and Christopher pretending to still be statesmen. Or maybe the astounding collection of incompetents Florida assembled to run its elections. Perhaps it’s the network know-it-alls who – the evidence here is overwhelming – don’t know squat. And surely a lot of folks have had it up to here with those whiny Sunshine State weaklings who couldn’t quite muster the strength to poke a hole all the way through a piece of paper.

For me, it’s that map. That big red and blue map of the United States you see plastered across the screen. I’m sick of looking at that big red blotch of southern and western states that went for Bush with that annoying blue trim on the two coasts and upper Midwest for Gore. I’m tired of hearing the observation that Gore could drive from Raleigh to Reno without passing through a single state he carried and thoroughly peeved that no one bothers to observe that Bush could drive through the states Gore carried and not see more than a handful of adult males who still dress up like cowboys.

The problem with that map is the color scheme. For purposes of the Electoral College, the winner-take-all red and blue motif is correct. For all other purposes, such as running a civil and democratic society, it is an optical illusion that distorts and divides. Contrary to what the hacks and exhibitionists would have you believe, this is not a nation of two distinct enclaves clustered at opposite ends of the spectrum. America is not red and blue. It’s purple. Purple in all its various and subtle shades.

Look at the numbers behind that map. Bush carried a few states by substantial margins, in the 65 to 35 percent ranges. Gore carried a few in somewhat the same way, though to a lesser degree. In most, they were within a few points of each other. Not red or blue, but violet blending to magenta.

Look at Maine. On the big map, it is Gore Blue. County by county, the differences between Gore and Bush were a few hundred votes, maybe a few thousand – wisteria, plum, a touch of mulberry.

Look out your kitchen window. If you voted Red, chances are that nice lady next door voted Blue. That couple across the road might have split their votes, but they’re still eating breakfast together and sleeping in the same bed. Their son, who’s up at the university, probably went Green and he’s still coming home for Thanksgiving. That crusty old grump down the road might have voted Buchanan Brown, but he’ll still give you a jump when your battery goes dead come January. Your neighborhood is not stripes and dots of discreet colors, but a rather lovely maroon.

This is important not just because you’re going to need that jump, but because, from Capitol Hill to the State House to the Town Hall, there’s a lot of work to do and it won’t get done if the true believers and know-it-alls succeed in convincing us that the election opened a deep chasm across the American landscape. In fact, it revealed just the opposite: Americans overall and overwhelmingly voted wisely and enthusiastically. From president to selectman, credible candidates did well, the demagogues, the posers and the lame-brained got pretty much what they deserved.

And although everybody’s completely sick of polls by this point, one published the other day by ABC News-Washington Post was enlightening and encouraging: More than two-thirds of Americans say they will gladly support either Bush or Gore as president; they accept that the popular-vote winner may not be the electoral-vote winner; they want it settled, but not at the expense of accuracy and fairness.

It was, from the public’s end, a great election. A great election spoiled by the inescapable conclusion that, in far too many places, the Board of Elections is where noodleheads go to die.

In cities and towns across the country, hundreds, even thousands, of voters were turned away from the polls because they had been purged from the voting list, often simply because they had moved across town or across the street. Even worse, as in Portland, this has occurred several elections in a row. Voter rolls must be accurate, but with recent history as a warning, couldn’t local election officials take a break from the purging long enough to let voters know – through public-service announcements, for example – that they have to re-register if they moved?

Palm Beach County, Fla., is, of course, ground zero for the vote-counting disaster. Local and state officials want to explain away the need to discard 20,000 improperly completed ballots by saying it’s not much worse than 1996, when 15,000 were tossed. In every other field of human endeavor, improvement and progress are the desired goals. And while Kathryn Harris, Florida’s well-traveled secretary of state, was enjoying the Sydney Olympics on the taxpayers’ tab and watching events timed to the split second with the most high-tech devices available, her state was getting ready to time the greatest political race in a generation with a sundial.

Poking through the household Crayola 64 box, I found the perfect color for America’s thoughtful and accommodating voters this election. It’s called, no kidding, “mauvelous.” For the hacks, exhibitionists and bunglers, I’m torn between outrageous orange and shocking pink.

Bruce Kyle is the assistant editorial page editor for the Bangor Daily News.