The Justice's Election Extra began, like most good ideas, over food. This summer, at Big Nick's, a cramped burger joint on the Upper West Side, copy editor Ben Freed suggested the idea to me. Freed reasoned that which ever way the election went, the reaction here would be worth covering. He said the liberal majority on campus would be so heavily invested in Kerry by Nov. 2 that the result would mean either jubilation or emigration for them. Meanwhile, he said, the conservatives on campus would be fed up with Democratic pep talks, campaign efforts, fanfare and rain dances leading into the election. A Bush victory would buttonhole liberals and finally bring validation to conservative sentiments that have been effectively blacklisted from campus for the past four years.

The election issue's existence did not need to be further justified. But the editorial board, after accepting the plan, knew it would represent a logistical challenge. The Justice's last extra edition, which covered reaction to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, didn't appear around campus until the afternoon of Sept. 14. In order to be truly effective, we needed to have the issue printed, delivered and distributed by the morning after the election, giving us, at best, two hours to report on the result of the election.

Of course, we were uncertain there would be a result by then. The memory of the 2000 election had not faded. And early reports of ballot bedlam in Florida and Ohio certainly did not bolster our confidence.

As the election grew nearer, I grew more uneasy. Were we in over our heads? Needing some professional help, I e-mailed a mentor of mine, an assistant news editor at The Palm Beach Post. (If any newspaperman could prophesize an election foul-up, certainly one based in Palm Beach County, Fla. could)

"One thing you must know is that the 2000 election was an anomaly on a huge scale," he wrote back. "I think your plan is sound, but life, as we all know, can trash even the best plans."

Of course, it was not life that nearly trashed our plans. It was Ohio. In our plan, we accounted for three possibilities-a Kerry win, a Bush win, a 2000 encore-and wrote headlines and editorials for three separate issues, knowing only one would go to press. The night's reality forced an amalgamation of two scenarios-indecision and a Bush re-election. Fox News and NBC had declared Bush the winner of Ohio and the next president well before, but, for the rest of the networks, Ohio was still uncertain.

We scrapped our front-page headline and ran with a conservative "It's Bush...maybe," even while Tom Brokaw proclaimed the man victorious. We also ran an editorial lamenting what we thought would be inevitable to challenges to the result, since at that point online news sources were abuzz with claims of thousands of uncounted provisional and absentee ballots. In hindsight, it was a mistake worth making.

As our 4 a.m. deadline approached, copy and photo editing were being performed at a frenetic pace, while Ben, who had authored the main story, maintained our electoral vote count as more states became blue and red. In the end, our numbers were more up-to-date than The New York Times, which makes sense, since our deadline was later. But we'll still take the bragging rights.

We finished a bit shy of 5 a.m. It took a diplomatic coup de grEce to convince Paula, the iron-fisted (but warm-hearted) printer whom we disappoint so often with missed deadlines, to print the paper. At this point, the late crew, which had put out a full issue the night before was zonked beyond belief.

But our spirits were buoyed by a foolhardy idea to drive out to western Massachusetts-in the twilight of Nov. 3-and pick the paper up ourselves, ensuring an earlier delivery time. Ben, Andrew Meyerson, an associate editor, and I put our last bits of energy into distributing the paper around campus. For many students, it was the first newspaper they read since election night.

After class Wednesday, I remember finding Andrew in his house watching the Kerry motorcade snake into Faneuil Hall for the senator's concession speech. I lay down to watch, dozed off, and, shortly thereafter, fell off Andrew's bed. His penchant for feng shui dictates his bed be near to the ground.

Standing up, I realized it was time to get some sleep.