Given all the concern about vote fraud, the CPRC investigated how other countries have handled the process. The paper is available for download here. Here is the abstract:
Thirty-seven states have so far changed their mail-in voting procedures this year in response to the Coronavirus. Despite frequent claims that President Trump’s warning about vote fraud/voting buying with mail-in ballots is “baselessly” or “without evidence” about mail-in vote fraud, there are numerous examples of vote fraud and vote buying with mail-in ballots in the United States and across the world. Indeed, concerns over vote fraud and vote buying with mail-in ballots causes the vast majority of countries to ban mail-in voting unless the citizen is living abroad.
Most developed countries ban mail-in ballots unless the citizen is living abroad or require Photo-IDs to obtain those ballots. Even higher percentages of European Union or other European countries ban mail-in ballots for in country voters. In addition, some countries that allow voting by mail for citizens living the country don’t allow it for everyone. For example, Japan and Poland have limited mail-in voting to those who have special certificates verifying that they are disabled.
France has made an exception this year to the ban on mail-in ballots to those who are sick or at particular risk during the Coronavirus pandemic. Poland and two cities in Russia have adopted mail-in ballots for elections this year only, but most countries haven’t changed their regulations.
France banned mail-in voting in 1975 because of massive fraud in Corsica, where postal ballots were stolen or bought and voters cast multiple votes. Mail-in ballots were used to cast the votes of dead people. Examples for other countries are provided.
John R. Lott, Jr., “Why do most countries ban mail-in ballots?: They have seen massive vote fraud problems,” Social Science Research Network, August 3, 2020.
There is the possibility of corruption and fraud in every system. We can only try our best to minimize it. Ensuring every citizen is able to cast a ballot is more important than limiting options and suppressing the vote because there is a possibility of voter fraud.