I buy that it's rife for abuse in many countries, but the US has such a well-protected (legally-speaking) postal service that it's probably the best country of any I know to do mail-in voting.
Holding fair elections has no meaning unless people actually believe they are fair.
Also “abuse” doesn’t necessarily mean voter fraud. It can be as simple as being pressured by a family member to vote a certain way if you do it without privacy. If you vote alone in a booth that’s not an issue (and again - it’s an issue as soon as someone thinks it’s an issue).
Setting up mini polling places where people can cast early votes using the same procedure as on Election Day solves many problems without causing any new concerns. Other solutions have concerns however small.
You don't trawl political discourse much, do you? Early voting is specifically called out as a problem by people who claim that their political enemies are voting multiple times. Whether or not that's a bona fide concern is somewhat irrelevant.
I don't understand: what's the difference between early voting and non-early voting in that regard? The last vote made by one voter is the one that counts. If someone votes multiple times under multiple naames they could do so regardless of whether there is early voting.
Are these people suggesting that singlee-day voting and long waiting times help integrity because... it's physically impossible or at least extremely inconvenient to vote multiple times if you have a 3h wait to vote, and even if you try you can only fit so many 3h queue periods into an election day? They seriously fear that if people are given the opportunity of "voting in 5 minutes at the mall" they'd invent 100 different personas and vote 100 times?
autotranslation> Chain vote, allows the purchase of votes, the first one who enters to vote, puts another envelope (not the authorized one, but any one). That vote will probably be contested, but they take the valid envelope with them. Then he inserts a ballot from his party into it and closes it tightly, then he can organize a chain of votes making sure that they are in his favor, even if there is a dark room. He offers each person a reward if they bring the empty envelope in exchange for taking the full envelope. Frequently used in low-income areas where political leaders organize the chain.
It's a lot of work to avoid the checks of voting in person. Without those checks it's too easy to force or pay someone to vote for a party and verify it 100%.