With millions of voters taking advantage of new, in-person early voting in at least 30 states this year, it's even more likely that such "ghost" votes will be counted because, in most cases, those ballots are impossible to retrieve. Besides, it could be days or weeks after the election before local officials get word someone has died.

Earlier this month, in what would be her last conscious act, 90-year-old Trixie Porter gripped a pen in her weak, trembling hand, checked the candidates of her choice and scrawled a squiggled signature on her absentee ballot.

Within an hour, the petite woman who had been suffering from heart problems lay back in her hospital bed, closed her eyes and never woke up. Her ballot arrived at her local elections board two days later, Oct. 5 the day she died.

"We commented that day that it probably won't count," said daughter Cheryl McConnell. "But she went to her grave not knowing any different. It counted with her."

The thousands of lawyers from both parties who will be descending on battleground states Tuesday looking for reasons to pick up a few votes could find the phenomenon of dead voters more than just an Election Day curiosity.

In Florida alone, more than 1.8 million people, many of them elderly and sick retirees, have cast absentee ballots or voted early in person in the past two weeks.