YES!
Those outdated voter rolls in mail out ballot states are certainly problematic. And are they purposely ignored, overlooked, and outdated in some states? Legal proceedings would indicate, yes they are. All those ballots are arriving at some address and can be used by anyone.
Anyone who can forge the signature, or risk being prosecuted. Ie ... not just anyone.
Once they are filled out and mailed in or dropped off at a drop box, the only thing preventing a fraudulent ballot from being counted is a single signature check, which might be just a software setting as to the magnitude of that check - or a person subjectively deciding - good enough.
With in-person voting, the only people who ever get access to ballots are (hopefully) registered voters who are alive and present at a voting location.
Or someone bearing ID which passes inspection. Old white guy with a beard, versus middle-aged white guy clean shaven - good enough.
The point you should make is that fraudulent voters whose real identity is not known, are there in person and can be arrested. Except no, that never happens. The most that happens is that the officials wave them off so they can try at another voting station ... or even the same one later in the day, when a different official is at the ID desk. OR EVEN later, after they've had a shave and changed their clothes.
It's hilarious that you put so much faith in election officials to check ID, when you mock their ability to match signatures. They're just human, they can make mistakes in both cases and
in neither case are attempted cheats prosecuted.
Compared to issuing a unique voting card to everyone on the Social Security roll, all other methods are pathetically weak.
If proper ID is checked, chances are quite high that person is alive, residing in the state, and eligible to vote.
Oh right. An ID lasts 3 to 5 years, and nobody ever moves state (or district) in that time.
That's a FAR more secure method.
Mail out ballots are undeniably a fraudsters dream. Having more ballots floating around than eligible voters is a recipe for fraud. And now knowing if the mailed out ballot ever actually reached the person it was intended for is another recipe for fraud.
Providing the state knows the address of everyone living in the state (which they could mostly, considering bills payed to utilities, state tax records, and vehicle notices from police) and enhances that knowledge with the LACK of notices from other states, it is entirely practical to mail out ballots ONLY to legal residents of the state. I'm sure you don't like that kind of surveillance, but states have it if they would just look.
So it's not a huge potential for voter fraud. Really you should be more bothered by states misusing the data to disenfranchise people. But there we get into scary shit: people aren't really that bothered by what corporations or government knows about them, but they go bugshit about all that information going public.
Privacy of the vote is still a big deal. There is no accounting for families or households, there are deals done there like "no allowance unless you vote for x" and "no sex for two weeks if you dare to vote for y" which cannot be regulated. They are invasions of voting rights, and the only way to protect them is in-person voting, with only one person at a time allowed in a booth. That's MY reason for deprecating the postal vote, but it's also my reason for making in-person voting as quick, easy and intellectually simple as possible. Practically nobody needs "help" to vote, and when they do, the help should be provided by a non-partisan poll worker not a relative or carer.
Early voting addresses most of my concerns. Rural people who only go to town once or twice a month, can vote then or they can vote nearer to election day using a Voting Van which comes near to them. Nursing home residents can vote (early) on the one day that the poll workers come to them. Military stationed abroad can vote on the day, with poll workers sent to major bases (intelligence workers can vote by mail, but they would anyway since they don't want government officials coming to them). And all of them would still have the option of mail (absentee) voting. The point is that voting in privacy need not be denied, nor made onerous, to anyone.
I oppose mail-only voting. Not because of the risk of fraud, but because it provides no guarantee of privacy. Simply by spending more money, we can provide privacy of the vote to almost everyone, and the in-person process is better protected against individual and government fraud too.