In a local election a year ago a few miles from where I live I New Jersey, 19% of the mail-in votes were fraudulent.. Some of the Democrat candidates were illegally harvesting votes. Fortunately, an alert mailman noticed a problem and brought it to the attention of the Postal police and it was investigated. The election was declared null and void and three or four people were charged with election law crimes.
This argument against mail-in ballots suffers from two related logical fallacies: the logical fallacy of hasty generalization and the logical fallacy of anecdotal evidence. Essentially, it is inferring the general from the specific. Alan also misstates, and omits to state, the facts of the particular incident in New Jersey, but since we argued about it for days before the election, I am not going to rehash it now.
There are very big issues with mail-in votes. While my wife and I voted by mail in, we requested the ballot. That's fine and I agree that would be an acceptable way of voting. But here's the problem. What happened during the election, ballots were mailed to everyone who was still listed on a local voting roll whether they moved or were dead. That attracts fraud as millions of ballots are circulating without proper recipients. These ar often left near mailboxes in apartment buildings form anyone to pick up to complete and mail back in. Also, Democrats want no ID for voting. That's silly and just attracts more fraud. What modern country today do you vote without showing proper identification?
So Alan says he is okay with the way New Jersey did it in 2020. That is how it was done in 41 out of 50 states in 2020. Here are the 9 states and the District of Columbia that sent ballots out to everyone on the voter rolls. The last 5 asterisked states conduct their election by mail in ballot only, and were doing so even before 2020.
Vermont 66/31
Nevada 50/47
District of Columbia 92/5
California 64/34
New Jersey 57/41
*Colorado 55/42
*Hawaii 64/34
*Utah 38/58
*Washington 58/39
*Oregon 56/40
The numbers following the states' name represent Democrat/Republican vote percentages. As you can see, except for Nevada, the victory margins were huge by American standards. Trump legally contested the results in Nevada and could not establish any fraud. Indeed, Trump couldn't establish fraud anywhere. Of course he didn't allege fraud in any of the states he won. Apparently fraud in those states was okay.
Voting "reform" is not solely about mail-in ballots. There are a number of other issues, which are well summarized in the link below.
"Thus far this year, thirty-three states have introduced, prefiled, or carried over 165 bills to restrict voting access. These proposals primarily seek to: (1) limit mail voting access; (2) impose stricter voter ID requirements; (3) slash voter registration opportunities; and (4) enable more aggressive voter roll purges. These bills are an unmistakable response to the unfounded and dangerous lies about fraud that followed the 2020 election."
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-laws-roundup-february-2021As Stacey Abrahms said of the bills to restrict voting introduced in Georgia, this is "Jim Crow in a suit and tie".
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/stacey-abrams-restrict-voting_n_604eb121c5b6cf72d0976ece
