You are able to check online to see that it has in fact been processed, and you sign the outside of the envelope to indicate that you are in fact the person nam

You are able to check online to see that it has in fact been processed, and you sign the outside of the envelope to indicate that you are in fact the person named on the envelope. And they do check those and call you if your signature is too far off the recorded one, which is about the same level of verification as signing your name on the roll at a polling place. (Since, of course, doing anything more stringent than that is apparently a Racist Republican Conspiracy To Disenfranchise (TM).) The one thing that's now possible is coerced voting, but apparently Washington believes that this is outweighed by the benefit of improved turnout.