Will the votes be counted?

I gather about a quarter of the voting has already been done through early voting and absentee balloting. Mrs. Walldon and I voted by absentee about two weeks ago here in New Jersey. I also gather that it appears Obama is way up (56 to 39) in the early voting, but that he and McCain are essentially tied among those who haven't yet voted. All of which raises a question in my mind.

In years past, the absentee ballots have only been counted (at least here in NJ) if there was a high likelihood that they would make a difference. The evaluation of likelihood was based on votes already counted, not on the likely complexion of the absentee votes. So, suppose McCain wins by two or three points among the votes actually counted on election day. People may simply ignore the absentee votes even though, in this rare case, they would be likely to swing the election the other way.

In other words, there may be a big danger in having gotten all the Democrats to vote early, since the Thuglicans may simply choose not to count those votes.