A court in Dutchess County, New York, met this morning and heard arguments on the most immediate legal issue in the NY-20 special election: When to count the several-thousand absentee ballots that will decide this race. An order could come as soon as today.

The issue here is that all absentee ballots would have normally been counted at the same time Wednesday, after the deadline for them to arrive in the mail. However, the state had entered into a consent decree with the Justice Department shortly before the election, extending the deadline for military and overseas ballots to arrive by April 13.

The Murphy campaign wants to count the domestic absentee ballots immediately, then wait for the military/overseas votes, arguing that the federal order had no effect on how to handle the regular absentees. The Tedisco camp wants to delay counting those domestic ballots, and handle them together with the military ballots.

Republicans have predicted that the overseas/military ballots will benefit Tedisco. This is certainly possible, but it should be noted that only less than 20% of all absentee ballots issued were overseas and military (not getting into the still-open question of how many are returned). If the regular absentees are opened and counted immediately, and favor Murphy, there's really almost nothing that can be done about it afterward.

It's important to remember -- as we've learned from the Minnesota Senate race -- that once absentee envelopes are opened and the ballots counted, they can never be physically un-counted. So if any ballots are counted tomorrow, or in a week or whenever else, the ballots will be separated from their envelopes and cannot be reunited.