autocomplete dropdown box messes up other elements on page

autocomplete dropdown box messes up other elements on page

I'm just wondering if autocomplete's dropdown box is absolutely positioned or not, because as soon as it opens it changes the layout in my form. My form is made up of nested tables, and each element of the form is within a table cell. When autocomplete's dropdown box opens, it must be opening inside the table cell because the whole table row takes on the same height as the dropdown box screwing up my layout completely! Wouldn't it be better if it were absolutely positioned so that it wouldn't affect anything else on the page?

And moreover, the list of items in the dropdown, is it an actual list of <li>'s? because I'm getting other formatting which is typical of other <ul>'s on my site and is not pretty in the dropdown. I'm getting a large dot in front of each item (which is not included in the highlight box on hover) and an underline for each item when it's hovered.