4 ms·

Nothing beats the relaxation of voting by mail. Secure? Better then most.

• jcrawfordor 7y ago
  Keep in mind that mail-in ballots are counted by centralized OMR which generally provide the voter less assurance that their vote was successfully tabulated than a precinct tabulation system. For example, a mail-in ballot that is erroneously marked or overvoted (too many choices in a race) may need to be simply discarded for that question, while a precinct tabulator will reject such a ballot and return it to the voter for correction or to be spoiled (replaced). Mail-in voting systems also generally use a permit system to allow voters to check online that their ballot was received, but the need to maintain a secret ballot means that permits (actually the outer envelope usually) and ballots are separated at tabulation and so mail-in voters have less assurance that their ballot actually made it to the tabulator than voters in precinct tabulation jurisdictions where they insert it themselves. All of this said, the convenience and accessibility of mail-in voting is extremely beneficial and so an ideal solution may be a hybrid arrangement in which voters have the option of mailing in their ballots or submitting them for immediate tabulation at a precinct or early polling location. This system actually exists in several states although the "mail-in option" tends to actually be an extension of absentee voting (basically, you are allowed to vote absentee by mail even if you just want your ballot sent to your own house inside of the jurisdiction), but awareness of the mail-in voting option could be significantly improved.