IT'S THE MOB VS. THE PREZ FOR EMMY HONORS THIS YEAR.

Byline: David Kronke

The president of the United States goes up against a mob boss on Sept. 10, when the 52nd annual Emmy Awards are distributed. And the big question is, will the TV Academy's new voting system have an influence on who delivers the acceptance speech and who sleeps with the fishes?

Both NBC's ``The West Wing,'' about a president and his dedicated staff, and HBO's ``The Sopranos,'' which examines New Jersey families both biologically and biliously illegal, received 18 nominations Thursday. Last year, ``Sopranos'' earned 16 nominations but won only two trophies in what was interpreted as a bias against its cable origins.

Everyone in Hollywood knows ``The Sopranos'' should've won last year. This year, in an apparent effort to bring more adventurous sensibilities into the voting pool, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences created a new judging procedure.

Instead of sequestering 1,000 or so people with a lot of time on their hands in a bunch of hotel rooms and force-feeding them nominated TV series until their eyes bulge, they're allowing busier viewers to promise to watch the nominees on their own time and on the honor system. This will ostensibly result in a collection of judges both larger - up to 4,000 Academy members are expected to contribute - and, presumably, more active in today's television production and therefore more attuned to today's trends.

But there's no easy fix short of slashing the number of categories, hacking away the volume of nominations and making winning an Emmy actually mean something. (Speaking as someone who knows how to use the fast-forward button on my VCR as well as anyone, I can assure you that this new system is probably as flawed as the old one.)

So all we can do is look at how this year's change will affect the voting.

Under the old system, it's fair to say that ``The West Wing'' would've been named best drama. But new voters might help Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) and the mob boys get some payback for last year's snub.

The vote will be between cynicism (``Sopranos'') and soaring uplift (``West Wing'') - so given the way organizations with the word Academy in their names vote, it probably is still gonna be ``West Wing's'' year. But Gandolfini wins his Emmy, easy.

Things appear simpler in the outstanding comedy series category. Until last year, ``Raymond'' was a perennial oversight at the Emmys; everybody neglected ``Raymond.'' Even last year, when it finally scored major, across-the-board nominations for the show and its cast, it came up short.

The biggest injustice after ``The Sopranos''' loss was the repeated victories by Kristin Johnston of ``3rd Rock from the Sun'' over Doris Roberts - who, as Ray's mother, is every bit a deliciously insidious matriarch as the late Nancy Marchand's Livia on ``Sopranos.''

Even though ``Raymond'' is perceived as a family show, it has wonderfully subversive takes on family manipulations and tensions. This season's episode on PMS was a tiny classic.

But none of that matters, because ``Will & Grace'' is a more cosmopolitan, more upscale, ostensibly more sophisticated comedy that's politically incorrect in a politically correct way - and it's flat-out funny. Its urbane sensibility guarantees its win in the new voting bloc.

``Everybody Loves Raymond'' will be the series with an asterisk next to its title in the history books - in the year it was due to win the Emmy, it got screwed by the rules change. And all the comic lead acting nominees will need an asterisk - this is the year Michael J. Fox will receive an ipso facto lifetime achievement Emmy after stepping down from ``Spin City.'' As an aside, his wife, Tracy Pollan is up for drama series guest actress in ``Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.''

Other random Emmy oddities: the outstanding miniseries category offered intriguing juxtapositions, with ``Jesus'' competing against ``P.T. Barnum'' as well as the Baltimore junkies of ``The Corner.''

``Freaks and Geeks'' was the only canceled series to earn a writing nomination - good writing usually being a hallmark of shows that endure (it also picked up a nomination for its inspired casting). Another writing oddity: ``Buffy the Vampire Slayer,'' long a critically admired series shut out of the Emmy proceedings, received a scripting nomination for a unique episode in which the characters did not speak for most of its running time; more oddly, the show did not pick up a nomination for the direction that ensured that episode's success.

Curiously enough, the most nominated actor Thursday - one for guest actor in a drama (for playing a kinky dentist in the season premiere of ``The Practice''), the other for guest actor in a comedy (in NBC's little- seen ``Battery Park'') - was none other than the Fonz himself, Henry Winkler.

So how seriously do you take the Emmys?