It occurs to me that there's a fairly obvious way to get the benefits of both: require voting in person, but make voting mandatory.
But the idea has never gotten very far. In general, the idea of a collectivist state that is underpinned by citizen responsibilities has been subsumed by the idea of the state as service supplier, and the citizen consumer.
You could write in a name, or hand in an empty ballot. Mind, nothing will come of this even if it's the majority pick, but you're never actually forced to choose a candidate.
If voting is mandatory than any impediments to being able to vote (like not giving employees time off) is quite limited by the fact that such impediments are illegal, in the US voter suppression sort of skates by on BS and lots of talking heads explaining how unmotivated millennials are.
This is only feasible if employers are legally required to allow employees time off to vote. In many countries, election days are holidays, but attempts to follow suit in the US haven't gone anywhere.
How can you do that without an amendment? As I understand it, states are free to choose the methods for elections (which is why there is such variety in the US).
From the whitehouse.gov site:
> Federal elections are administered by state and local governments, although the specifics of how elections are conducted differ between the states. The Constitution and laws of the United States grant the states wide latitude in how they administer elections.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/elections-v...