Mail-in voting is too expensive and unwieldy

The argument

Mail-in ballots should be banned as they would impose added expenses and hassles to the voting process for both citizens and the government. Both state and federal governments would incur a plethora of new expenses for a switch to mail-in ballots. Ballots and corresponding instruction sheets would need to be mass printed for each eligible voter. In addition, each ballot would need an envelope and stamp for transportation. Lastly, and most importantly, delivering the ballots to every eligible voter would add even more expenses. The costs of paper, ink, labor, postage, and delivery fees would amass to an unreasonable amount for governments. On the other end of the process, citizens would have new expenses with the adoption of mail-in ballots. Buying stamps, organizing paperwork, and navigating through the U.S. Postal Service adds even more impediments to an already cumbersome voting process. Perhaps the most significant pitfall of a mail-in ballot system is the unwieldy logistic difficulties it would cause. Very few states have the postal capacity to handle the overwhelming number of ballots in a timely manner. On top of that, mail-in ballots would need to be counted, calling for added expenses of manual labor or high tech ballot scanners. There are many errors that would happen randomly, adding to the massive hassle of mail-in ballots. The U.S. Government should ban the use of mail-in ballots for the 2020 election for the added expenses and burdens they constitute.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Supporters of mail-in ballots would contend mail-in voting saves money as the government could avoid the fees related to operating polling sites. Polling sites require training and employing countless workers to regulate order and accuracy at voting stations. Mail-in ballots would save even more for citizens as they would not need to leave work, preventing the potential loss of money from time spent voting. Furthermore, in-person polling sites have additional covert costs such as transportation, time, and carbon emissions from citizens attending the polling sites themselves.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The costs are listed without the comparison a cost argument requires. Running in-person elections also costs money — premises, machines, and the recruitment, training and payment of large numbers of poll workers — so the relevant figure is the difference rather than the total. Several states had by then run all-postal elections for years, and their published costs are the evidence the premise needs and does not cite. [Rejecting P2] The burden on voters is small and partly avoidable, since prepaid return postage and drop boxes were widely used in 2020. Capacity strain is the stronger half of the claim, but it argues for funding and lead time — precisely what election officials were asking for that year — rather than establishing something the system cannot do. [Rejecting C] The conclusion does not follow even if both premises hold. Expense and administrative difficulty are reasons to prepare better; banning the method removes an option during a pandemic election, which carries its own costs to turnout and to public health — a trade-off the premises never weigh.