If you have a choice, vote the old fashioned way: At the polls,
allowing plenty of time, and ready to assert your right to vote, by
provisional ballot if necessary, if you are told your name is not on
the list. Although it is "easy and fun", vote by mail is second only
to Internet voting in the risk it presents to American democracy. To
get a glimpse of just how slipshod our control system for vote-by-mail
is, read the story of Jeffrey Dean and his prison companion, John
Elder:
While in prison, embezzler Jeffrey Dean became friends with a
narcotics trafficker named John Elder. While still in prison, on a
work-release program, Jeffrey Dean was tasked with creating a
computerized vote by mail program for King County, Washington. He
began this assignment while working for his brother, Neil Dean, whose
business had a contract with King County to provide temporary workers
for its huge absentee voting operation. At the time, King County had
about 1 million voters, 600,000 of whom voted by absentee.
Jeff and Neil Dean became involved in creating a vote-by-mail
automation program to handle mail processing and signature comparison.