Bribery and coercion have been reduced to practice many times throughout human history. Voting by mail also facilitates misdirecting or tampering with ballots.

Bribery and coercion have been reduced to practice many times throughout human history. Voting by mail also facilitates misdirecting or tampering with ballots. People have used all four approaches to sway elections with absentee ballots. Often they've been caught because the mailed ballots showed unusual trends or there were unusually many of them. The risks should be weighed against the benefits of greater turnout, but countries and even US states have found ways to improve turnout while keeping the safeguards of the secret ballot.