In his August 26, 2025, RealClearPolitics article, John R. Lott Jr. sounds the alarm on mail-in voting, echoing President Trump's call to "get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS" due to their susceptibility to fraud and corruption. Lott's argument is clear: the United States' permissive mail-in and absentee voting systems, unique among developed nations, invite fraud, vote-buying, and coercion, undermining the trust Americans place in their elections. From historical vote-buying scandals to recent cases of ballot harvesting, the evidence is mounting that mail-in voting opens the door to the very abuses America fought to eliminate a century ago. It's time to reconsider this flawed system and adopt secure, verifiable in-person voting to restore confidence in our democracy. This is of relevance to the West, including Australia, as it is vital not to let the US fall into another Leftist Democrat government, with the China threat looming.

Lott highlights a stark reality: the U.S. stands nearly alone in its embrace of mass mail-in voting. Unlike eight U.S. states that automatically send ballots to all registered voters, most developed nations tightly restrict or outright ban mail-in and absentee voting for domestic citizens. Of 47 European countries, 35, including France, Italy, and Norway, prohibit absentee voting for residents within their borders, per Lott's research. Ten others, like England and Ireland, allow it only with in-person pickup and photo ID verification. Six of those limit absentee ballots to military or hospitalised voters, requiring official verification. Poland, the only other country to consider mass mail-in voting in 2020, abandoned the idea during the pandemic. Why? Because other nations have seen the chaos it invites.

The U.S., by contrast, allows anyone to request an absentee ballot by claiming they'll be out of town, with no ID required in many states. This lax approach, Lott argues, is a relic of a bygone era, and its consequences are dire. In 2004, England uncovered massive fraud in Birmingham city council races, where 40,000 fraudulent absentee votes, mostly from Muslim neighbourhoods, secured six Labour candidates' victories. England responded by requiring in-person pickup with photo ID. France banned absentee voting entirely in 1975 after hundreds of thousands of ballots, including votes from the dead, were fraudulently cast in Corsica. These countries learned the hard way what the U.S. ignores: mail-in systems are a playground for manipulation.

Historical and Recent Evidence of Fraud

America's own history reinforces Lott's case. Between 1888 and 1950, widespread vote-buying plagued elections until states adopted the secret ballot, which made it harder for buyers to verify votes. Lott's research with Larry Kenny at the University of Florida found voter turnout dropped 8-12% after secret ballots were introduced, a clear sign of how rampant vote-buying had been. Mail-in and absentee voting, however, undo this safeguard. As Lott notes, citing the 2005 bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform led by Jimmy Carter and James Baker III, "Absentee ballots are the largest source of potential voter fraud." Unlike in-person voting, mail-in ballots allow sellers to prove their vote and buyers to ensure compliance, making fraud nearly undetectable.

Recent cases drive this home. In 2025, Texas prosecutors indicted six individuals for ballot harvesting and vote-buying, exploiting absentee ballots to manipulate outcomes. In Hamtramck, Michigan, surveillance footage from August 2025 caught a city council candidate's aide stuffing three stacks of ballots into a drop box, securing a narrow victory. These aren't isolated incidents. A 2018 North Carolina congressional race was tainted by a Republican operative collecting over 1,200 absentee ballots, leading to a criminal conviction. The 2005 Carter-Baker commission warned that mail-in voting enables coercion, especially in settings like nursing homes or workplaces, where pressure can be subtle but pervasive. These risks aren't theoretical, they're happening now.

Public Distrust and Media Denial

The American public sees through the facade. A Rasmussen poll from late 2024, cited by Lott, found 59% of likely voters, across racial and age groups, believe mail-in voting makes cheating easier. Only Democrats, liberals, graduate-school alumni, and high earners disagreed, revealing a disconnect between elites and the broader public. Yet, as Lott points out, media outlets like The New York Times have flip-flopped, warning in 2012 that absentee ballots "increase the potential for fraud" but now dismissing such claims as "baseless." This denial ignores reality: the Heritage Foundation's voter fraud database documented 239 cases of absentee ballot fraud from 1997 to 2019, and that's just a sample. With millions of mail-in ballots cast in 2020 alone, the lack of signature verification in many states makes fraud a low-risk, high-reward crime.

The Path to Secure Elections

Lott's solution, echoed by Trump's call for an executive order, is to eliminate mass mail-in voting and tighten absentee ballot rules. The U.S. should follow the lead of Norway and Mexico, which ban absentee voting for domestic citizens, or England, which requires in-person pickup with photo ID. A 2023 Pew poll shows 70% of Americans support voter ID laws, a simple fix to verify mail-in ballots if they must persist. In-person voting, with secret ballots and robust ID checks, minimises coercion and fraud while ensuring every vote counts. The technology exists, biometric scanning, secure polling sites, and states like Florida have already cut fraud by requiring ID and limiting drop boxes, per 2024 election data.

The case against mail-in voting isn't about convenience; it's about trust. When ballots are mailed en masse to outdated voter rolls, Lott cites a 2020 Nevada case where ballots littered apartment mailrooms, the system invites abuse. When candidates win by dozens of votes while operatives stuff drop boxes, as in Michigan, the public's faith erodes. America fought hard to end vote-buying a century ago; mail-in voting reopens that door. It's time to close it, and restore integrity!

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/mail-ballots-need-go-john-lott-jr