Illinois has had mail-in ballots since 1775. Trump has made mail-in ballots an issue because he is losing and hopes to suppress the vote, make it harder for people to vote, and sew doubt among his supporters about the expected outcome. Trump himself has used mail-in ballots his entire life, and his campaign is sending postcards to Republican voters encouraging mail-in voting.
Vote-by-mail is more secure than in-person voting. It is also faster, more economical, and much easier for the voter, which encourages higher voter participation than in-person voting.
All of the objections to vote-by-mail that I’ve seen in this thread and elsewhere were brought up when Oregon was considering changing to all vote-by-mail twenty-one years ago. Oregon has had all vote-by-mail for twenty years now, and it works just fine, none of those objections at the start have proved valid, and Oregon consistently has one of the highest voter participation percentages in the country.
Forget voter fraud, that has been proved over and over again to be so rare as to be statistically irrelevant. The main reason many people, and one political party in particular, fight so hard against vote-by-mail is because it effectively nullifies most of their favorite methods of voter suppression, which they depend upon to win elections.
Despite partisan fears, research suggests neither party gains an advantage with mail-in voting. You may be surprised to learn that in 2016, 33% of the votes were mail-in votes. A panel that Trump charged with investigating election corruption found no real evidence of fraud before he disbanded it in 2018.
