How do you know voting by mail works? The U.S. military's done it since the Civil War.

[left-of-center2012]

The nation in crisis. A divisive president up for re-election. Millions of Americans who can't make it to their local polling place. Partisan fights over proposals to vote by mail. Sound familiar?

It was the 1860s, the Civil War was raging and Republicans, led by President Abraham Lincoln, wanted to let Union soldiers vote from the battlefield. About 150,000 of the 1 million Union soldiers were able to vote absentee in the 1864 presidential election in what became the first widespread use of non-in-person voting in American history.

A century and a half later, amidst a new debate over voting by mail as the country prepares to hold an election during a different kind of war — this one against the coronavirus — America's long history of letting soldiers vote from far-flung war zones shows the issue has always been controversial, but that the worst fears of critics have never come to pass.

It's now easier in some ways for a Marine in Afghanistan to vote than it is for an American stuck at home during the COVID-19 lockdown. And some lawmakers and advocates want to use the rules that lets that Marine cast a ballot as a model for how all Americans could vote in the November presidential election if the pandemic continues.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/how-do-you-know-voting-mail-works-u-s-military-n1186926

[Timewas]

1. It does

We have been voting by mail for many years here in Oregon. It is very convenient and actually makes it much easier than you would think, we get our ballot and have a couple weeks to really look at proposals and candidates and make truly informed decisions... I know we could do that same thing even with regular voting but it seems so much easier when you have the ballot in front of you ..

[marlakay]

5. I agree in Oregon also

Any people I don’t know I google, or any proposition.

I usually drive to drop off box and for those that don’t trust the mail service they can do that. I trust it but just enjoy seeing others voting too, usually a small line at box.

[samnsara]

7. Wash state was a few years behind Oregon. At first I bitched because I..

...loved the old fashioned voting in person. And the election day sign waving. Our polling place was a one room school district way out in the country. Its smelled of chalk and that floor wax janitors used. But now I LOVE mail in voting and especially since its now pre stamped for us!

[dalton99a]

2. Kick

[sarge43]

3. Not only a civil war, two world wars

As far as I know, first time in history ordinary grunts were able to help decide peacefully who would be their head of state and their command-in-chief. That, as we used to say, is a BFD.

[left-of-center2012]

4. That's covered in the linked article of the OP

[CrispyQ]

6. My state has vote by mail for all elections.

In my county, you can sign up for text alerts. They alert you when they've mailed your ballot and they alert you when they receive it back. We can mail it, or we also have special ballot boxes placed at the County Clerk and Recorders offices, and at places like the Public Library.

I only have one issue with vote-by-mail—a household where a bully collects all the ballots and votes them the way he/she wants to. But no system is perfect and I think vote-by-mail would disenfranchise far fewer people than the current system.