Should Mail-In ballots be banned in the 2020 US Elections?

Absentee ballots are needed because the traditional voting system is broken

Question: Should Mail-In ballots be banned in the 2020 US Elections?
Position‹2 of 2: No, mail-in ballots should not be banned in the 2020 US Presidential elections.
Argument1 of 6›: Absentee ballots are needed because the traditional voting system is broken

Absentee ballots help mitigate the underfunded and messy US electoral system which otherwise leads to mass disenfranchisement - voting in person can disenfranchise the disabled, those unable to take time off work or childcare.

The argument

Proponents say absentee ballots help mitigate the underfunded and messy US electoral system which otherwise leads to mass disenfranchisement. Anecdotes about waiting outside in the heat or in the rain for hours in order to cast a vote in a US election are not uncommon. There are large demographics of people who simply cannot physically cope with this, or cannot because they cannot take time off work or childcare. This is combined with what proponents claim are ‘deliberate attempts to make voting harder’ such as understaffed polling stations, unnecessary and difficult rules about voter identification and voter rolls purges. All these issues disenfranchise large swathes of people, directly violating their rights to vote. Vote-by-mail is a way to give these people the voice they are entitled to.

Premises

[P1]The US in-person voting system is underfunded and obstructive, forcing voters to wait for hours and erecting barriers like understaffed stations, strict ID rules and voter-roll purges. [P2] These barriers disenfranchise large groups who cannot physically cope or take time off work or childcare, violating their right to vote. [P3] Vote-by-mail gives these disenfranchised voters a practical way to exercise that right. [C] Therefore, because they fix a broken voting system, mail-in ballots should not be banned.

Counter-arguments

Those who favoured restricting mail-in ballots, the sibling position, reply that the remedy for a broken in-person system is to fix that system — more polling places, staff and shorter waits — not to expand a different channel whose administration they questioned. They argued that a rapid, large-scale shift to mail voting in 2020 risked administrative strain, ballots lost or rejected over signature and deadline rules, and slower counts. On the disenfranchisement point, they note absentee voting had long existed for those who genuinely needed it, so the dispute was really about mass unsolicited mailing rather than access as such. Whatever the merits, pointing to flaws in in-person voting does not by itself show mail-in ballots should not be limited; it shows the in-person process needs reform.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Flaws in the in-person system are an argument for fixing that system — more polling places, staff and shorter waits — not necessarily for expanding mail-in voting, so they do not establish that mail-in ballots should not be limited. [Rejecting P2] Absentee voting already existed for those who needed it, so the disenfranchisement point does not settle the actual dispute, which was over large-scale unsolicited mail balloting and its administration.