Planning to vote absentee in order to ensure their vote is counted? I've heard this is the only way to vote b/c machines can be hacked.?

If you vote absentee, you must certify you are unavailable to attend the election. If you could, and just opt for absentee, you're committing voter fraud...just sayin'

I work the polls, and have for many years. The absentee ballots (at least in my state) are fed into the machine at the end of the night along with every other ballot cast that day. I can't see how there could be any difference in their counting. We actually open the envelopes once the polls close, then match them up with the list of absentee ballots requested, and once they match, we feed them into the voting machine.

OK but paper ballots can be lost or burned.

And absentee ballots can be lost