[robomartin]

That's the wrong perspective. The minute votes go into the mail system there is no way to know just how many mail-in votes might be subject to fraud. In other words, your characterization has no basis in evidence. Note that I am not asserting that massive fraud has been committed anywhere. That statement would be as impossible to support with evidence as yours.

The only thing you can state with absolute certainty is that mail-in ballots can be subject to manipulation and that this manipulation can reach enough scale to affect results in elections where the margin is so narrow that a few hundred or a few thousand votes can determine who wins.

Simple example: We receive eight ballots. There's absolutely nothing to prevent me from filling out all eight of them as I see fit and mailing them. Nothing.

There's also nothing to prevent bad actors from destroying ballots in large quantities.

Again, do not mischaracterize my statements here. I am not asserting that any of this has happened. I am saying that mail-in ballots enable potentially serious manipulation and are insecure.

This is like saying that short passwords are insecure. Lots of people use them safely and never get hacked. We all know they are unsafe. The fact that they might not be insecure enough for the general public to understand the issue (because you don't have news every day showing how many thousands of people are getting hurt) is immaterial. The truth of the matter is independent of the perceived consequences. Short passwords are insecure. Mail-in ballots are insecure.

[toast0]

> There's also nothing to prevent bad actors from destroying ballots in large quantities.

Around here (WA state), you can check to see if your ballot was received and accepted. If a bad actor destroys ballots in large quantities on their way to voters, many voters will notice and complain. If a bad actor destroys ballots in large quantities on their way to to the counting facility, some voters are likely to notice and complain.

Same goes if you return ballots for other people. Either the actual voter notices their ballot is missing or the vote counters notice they got two ballots from the same voter or a larger than usual number of bad signatures.

Is it foolproof? No. And there's usually no established procedure to cure a tampered election, either. But large scale tampering is likely to leave signs. And small scale tampering would only rarely make a difference in results.

In person voting might be more secure, but it takes a lot more people, and if you want an ID requirement, you need to figure out how to make ID acheivable for all the voters or it's really just a tool to disenfranchise people who have trouble getting ID. In the US, there is no blanket ID requirement, so there are a lot of eligible voters without ID.

[what]

No one has trouble getting an ID. You need an ID to drive, to work, to open a bank account, to buy liquor or tobacco, etc. The idea that someone can’t get an ID is absolute nonsense.

[defrost]

> There's absolutely nothing to prevent me from filling out all eight of them as I see fit and mailing them. Nothing.

Just as there is nothing to prevent a person threatening or physically coercing 8 members of their household to vote as they direct.

This is hard to scale up into the hundreds.

WRT mail-in ballots, these are common place in Australia.

You post in a provided envelope to the AEC address, that outer envelope indentifies you against the voter rolls, just as you are identified when you attend a physical voting location.

The inner sealed envelope contains your voing slip - this is removed and passed on to the "votes from district" counting bucket .. just as all the voting slips from physical voting locations are.

In the checksumming of the election the same person being marked down as having voted multiple times, whether at various locations or by multiple mail in ballots, gets caught and investigated.

At this point voters are marked off against registration rolls and actual votes are anonymous.

This is important in an Australian election as no one should know that someone drew a crude suggestive image of their local member and submitted that.

The real downside of mail in voting is missing out on a sausage sizzle with others in your district at a voting location on voting day.

[baggy_trough]

> Just as there is nothing to prevent a person threatening or physically coercing 8 members of their household to vote as they direct.

You are wrong. In person voting in the sanctity of the private voting booth prevents this.

[mr_toad]

> There's absolutely nothing to prevent me from filling out all eight of them as I see fit and mailing them. Nothing.

Until the other seven people try and cast votes.

[robomartin]

Think that through for a moment.

Hint: They never see the ballots.

My point wasn't to paint a water-proof scenario. It is to illustrate just how unreliable and dangerous mail-in voting can be. There are other vectors for manipulation.