From 2016 election alone: https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2019/04/10-oregon-voters...

Frankly, there are dozens of such cases in Oregon alone.

Your "assertion" does not "fit the facts"

I am not a maths person, but 10 out of millions fits my definition of a “hand-full”. And if you read the article that you linked to, which definitely does not stand for what you think it does unless you based your opinion on the title, it in no way contradicts what I said, which is effectively: voting by mail is at least as secure as any other method we have, and it makes it easier for more people to vote.

Here’s an excerpt from your article about the devious voter fraudsters: “At the time of the election, (Robbins) was suffering from kidney infections which impacted his cognition,” said Oregon Department of Justice spokeswoman Kristina Edmunson. “He does not remember voting two ballots, but acknowledges that he did and is extremely remorseful.”

> In those two decades there have been hardly a hand-full of convictions for mail fraud related to ballots that entire time, with millions of mail-in-ballots cast. And there are no indications or notions of any subversive fraud.

But that's the objection. Mail in voting is problematic because the fraud is so hard to detect.

Suppose someone obtains and submits a bunch of mail in ballots. Ballots of people who don't normally vote etc. How would they even get caught? "We haven't caught very many of them" is the problem.

> The only reason to oppose mail in voting, much like supporting rejiggering districts (gerrymandering), is to rig the vote.

You could say it's to prevent someone else from rigging the vote.

Also, this:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/there-is-no-evidence-th...

So if it doesn't really affect the balance of legitimate ballots and only makes fraud more difficult, why would somebody be against it unless they're legitimately concerned about fraud?

I guess I have not seen any factual basis to conclude that mail-in voting is problematic. I get the theoretical argument, and can imagine all sorts of USPS conspiracies to rig the vote, but the fact is we have multiple states that allow mail-in voting, where millions of voters have cast ballots by mail, and both parties have won and lost elections while watching and recounting numerous votes... and there is no indication that this process has been problematic, ever. And certainly no evidence that it is not at least as secure as the voting machines we have, while still facilitating more people voting.

> and there is no indication that this process has been problematic, ever.

It's a thing that actually happens:

https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/cudahy-officials-co...

https://www.dothaneagle.com/news/crime_court/woman-convicted...

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/cahokia-village-tr...

There are also even more small time cases like this:

https://gvwire.com/2019/08/23/mexican-man-who-supports-trump...

Where it's only one person voting when they're not eligible. Those cases often aren't even prosecuted, but at scale it adds up.

All those articles are about absentee ballots which absolutely nobody in DC is trying to stop entirely. It is how deployed military persons vote. Trump and the republicans are trying to stop States from implementing state-wide voting, or expanding absentee ballots for all citizens which more states are trying to implement due to a friggin’ pandemic. And yes, every system will have people that try to mess with it. But as Oregon’s nearly 2 decades of state-wide-vote-by-mail demonstrates, voting by mail is no more problematic than any other method of voting and it is more convenient for voters.

Edit: clarity while trying to maintain brevity.

> Suppose someone obtains and submits a bunch of mail in ballots. Ballots of people who don't normally vote etc. How would they even get caught?

For a start in California mail in ballots have to be signed and the signature has to match the registered voter's signature on file.

So you're assuming someone can steal a bunch of registered voters' ballots and fake their signatures.

Nobody examines anything but a tiny sample of the signatures unless there is a recount.

Were there a persistent, large-scale problem, a small sample over many elections would detect it, but actually the process is that each signature is matched before the inner ballot envelope is moved forward to be counted.

Here in WA state, my daughter kept changing her signature and had to verify her mail-in ballot for several elections.

I mean on first pass you can just compare the number of votes to voters

Grave ballots would require new/additional votes. That would sure the expected ballot returns.

There are a ton of ways to verify elections statistically that you could read into

Rules around mail in votes vary by state (some disallow entirely for legitimate reasons). My imagination can not determine what you mean by ‘hardly a handful of convictions‘, but here is a list of quite a few specific convictions for fraudulent absentee voting (along with other forms of voter fraud): https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/docs/p...

That is some evidence that mail-in votes can be abused. And you should consider how hard it is to detect such abuse. I’d love to see some evidence on why the benefits of mail-in voting outweighs the risks.

Also some evidence on your claims that mail-in voting favors one particular party would be enlightening.

The 300+ page document you cited to proves my point - almost none of those cases are related to states with mail-in voting. Absentee ballots =/= mail-in voting. ALL states have absentee ballots, regardless of whether mail-in voting is a statewide practice. And nobody is suggesting getting rid of absentee ballots, especially not republicans or Trump, because it is how many enlisted persons vote. Of all the states that have statewide mail in voting, none have voter-fraud issues that are unlike states without mail-in voting. All of this is very well demonstrated by the extensive PDF you posted.

And I certainly did not claim that mail-in voting favors one particular party, simply that it enables more people to vote and is at least as secure as any other system of voting that we have in the US. That said, I think it is worth asking - why is one party, with truly zero supporting facts, so vehemently opposed to voting by mail? And why is it the same party that so unabashedly gerrymanders voting districts: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/how-the-...

I know political rants are semi-frowned upon these days on HN, but it is deeply important that we as a society figure this stuff out.

I don’t think it ‘proves’ your point, because: 1. Absentee ballots are similar if not easier to detect, e.g. you might expect mail-in voter fraud if you see absentee voter fraud or vice-versa. For example, in Pennsylvania right now, the only difference in requirement for getting an absentee vs mail-in ballot is that you need a reason for the absentee, which gives one avenue of verification. Mail-in ballots don’t need any reason. 2. there are a number of categories that could have been done on mail-in votes, because it’s harder to detect with mail-in votes. It may just be a matter of how the convictions were categorized.

I think your distinction is valid and correct, but somewhat pedantic.

You said the only reason to oppose mail in voting is to rig the vote. That’s a pretty strong implication. But I would say an open mind would ask the other direction: why is anyone opposed to increasing voter integrity? You can’t simply ignore that. Voter integrity appeals to me as a normal-ass American with 1 vote.

You may have noticed I haven’t been political, and stay on principle. We as a society should be able to talk openly about principle without corrosive contempt for those with differing viewpoints.