After a campaign that City Council incumbents have called one of the most arduous of their career, voters and campaigners alike relaxed a little yesterday to wait for the polls to close.

"Today has been exceptionally pleasant because both sides have been considerate, have shared food and ideas," said Elizabeth W. Flaherty, who canvassed yesterday outside City Hall for Councillor William H. Walsh.

"All these people--we are on two different sides of the fence yet we're having coffee together," said Salim E. Kabawat, a backer of the Indepdenent slate.

This year's race has been heralded as one of the more exciting in recent years because three council members are not seeking re-election, leaving it to voters to decide whether the liberal Cambridge Civic Association should gain a majority on the council for the first time in many years and what the future of the city's rent control system should be.

As voters trickled in to decide who among the 28 candidates will sit on the nine-member City Council come next year, campaigners joined each other for doughnuts, coffee and a rare moment of dialogue.

But the atmosphere was hardly non-partisan. "We've been comparing the food," said Paula Lovejoy, a campaign worker for the Independent slate. "We had peanut butter and jelly from the [Working Committee for a Cambridge Rainbow,"] she said of the fledgling group that backs radical reform of city politics. But she added, "You'd think they [the Rainbow] would come up with something more creative," pointing to one Indepedent candidate who prepared a Portuguese speciality for the polls.

If the Rainbow's food was not a crowdpleaser to some, its politics were, according to many voters questioned in an informal survey at the polls yesterday.

"I came primarily to vote against 1-2-3 and for the rainbow coalition," said Ray J. Dupree, a rent-control tenant.

And Catherine B. Hoffman, who canvassed for the working committee outside the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, said she was surprised how many voters recognized the slate, and many voters said it was one of the things that drew them to the polls.

But residents said that, more than any other issue, Proposition 1-2-3 drove them to the polls--leading to the highest turnout in six years, with about 27,300 residents, or 57 percent of those registered, voting.

Nearly all those queried said they voted against the referendum, which supporters have said would give people who would otherwise never be able to own homes the opportunity to purchase them. Opponents to the measure argue that it would cripple the city's rent control system by severely depleting the supply of rent-controlled housing in Cambridge.

"I came to vote mainly for the 1-2-3," said Dorothy A. Adams, one of the few voters who said she supported the measure. "I've lived for six years in a rent-controlled apartment, and I want the opportunity to purchase it."

Many voters criticized the referendum as a blow to rent control, saying that it would turn Cambridge into a "little Boston" and calling it "a scam by the realtors to get their hands on rent-control property."

"I'm in a rent-controlled building, and if rent controls are out of Cambridge, I would probably have to move to another city," said Rebecca L. Herelerode.

Residents said they questioned the accuracy of figures used by 1-2-3 to show the economic benefits of the proposition and said they feared the referendum would be a blow to the city's much-touted diversity.

"They are handing out literature pricing the apartments at $50,60,70 thousand. Those figures are fantasy," said one voter who asked not to be named. And other said the measure threatened.

Said John A. Shetterly '66, "For economic reasons it favored me to vote for it, but the yuppifying of the neighborhood caused me to vote against it."

But if most voters and tenants interviewed yesterday expressed dismay at the referendum, landlords gave Proposition 1-2-3 their support.

Paul G. Ahern, a self-described small landlord said he voted for the proposition because "I think price control has been in the city too long, and there's a bunch of liberals running it." He added that under the system, he does not get enough money to to fix up his property. "It's terrible," he said.

And a few tenants said they backed the proposition--although mostly for personal reasons. Said one tenant who asked not to be named, "I have a four-family house under rent control. I would like to give one unit to my daughter and one to my son and under this system I can't do that."

Voters also said they worried that the referendum would give universities communities like Harvard undue power, with one explaining that he voted against Proposition 1-2-3 "so that you Harvardites don't grab it [property] all."

Among Harvard students and faculty, there was little consensus about the ballot referendum.

"I am against 1-2-3 and my father is for it, and it provides for some interesting family discussions," said Aimee F. Hendrigan '93, a city resident whose father is a landlord in North Cambridge.

Many interviewed at the polls said they were confused about 1-2-3 and attributed that confusion to a feeling of separation from the city at large. "A lot of Harvard students don't consider themselves to be Cambridge residents," said Becki L. Berner '90, who volunteered for council candidate Kenneth E. Reeves '72 outside the Quincy House polling place.

Nonetheless, campaigners are predicting that Harvard votes could still make a difference. According to Martin F. Brennan '89, campaign manager for Councillor Francis H. Duehay '55, Harvard typically brings in about 200 to 350 votes, most of which usually go to perennial favorite Councillor Walter J. Sullivan.

But Brennan said that students could be the deciding factor in choosing the composition of the council. "If students vote, they'll vote progressive."

Jennifer L. Greenstein, Juliet E. Headrick, Suzanne Petren Moritz, Philip M. Rubin and Dhananjai Shivakumar contributed to the reporting of this article.