Orr: It’s important to remember that postal voting makes ballots insecure because it takes them out of the control of election officials. That’s especially problematic at the time of voting. We are concerned that domineering spouses or parents, clergy, employers and so on may try to influence how relatively vulnerable voters actually vote. Such electoral domination was quite common prior to the implementation of the secret ballot and still occurs relatively frequently in jurisdictions where voting secrecy is imperfect. There’s no reason to believe that those willing and able to engage in electoral domination will not quickly take advantage of the opportunity here in the United States, too. That said, there are currently no academic studies aimed at uncovering electoral domination in US states that have adopted voting by mail; most research to date has focused on fraud