https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/57152/why-isnt-mail-in-voting-allowed-in-france
France allowed mail-in voting from 1958 to 1975. It was replaced by proxy voting by law 75-1239 in December 1975. The reasons given at the time to get rid of mail-in voting are the same reasons not to reintroduce it today, namely, that it can and did permit significant fraud.
Mail-in voting offers opportunities for fraud
A major difficulty in organizing political voting is that no single person or organization is trusted to tally and report votes sincerely. A trustworthy voting process must make any attempt at tampering evident. This is very difficult with mail-in voting because the chain of custody is long.
The voting process in France ensures that every point of the chain of custody of votes and vote tallies is verified by multiple people, and any voter is authorized to observe it. Voting is done with paper ballots which the voter places in a transparent ballot box, which never leaves the polling station. Any voter who is registered in the same municipality can observe both the voting (which takes place over a single day) and the tallying at the polling station. Fraud at this stage requires controlling or intimidating all would-be observers, which is a high threshold. The threshold for polling-station fraud over mail-in votes is a lot lower. It is impractical to verify that the mail received over the course of days or even weeks was kept securely, that none of it was thrown away and that extra votes are not added.
It is also more difficult to prevent impersonation with mailed-in votes. At best, casting a mail-in vote on behalf of someone else requires the knowledge of some secret code that was mailed to the voter, and of the voter's signature. Both of these are very easy to do for the entity that organizes the vote. Other would-be fraudsters need to intercept mail, which is a higher threshold, but less high than impersonating someone who is supposed to be physically present.
Another difficulty with mail-in voting is that it makes coercion and vote selling easy. Even if it was possible to validate the chain of custody of the ballot after it was filled by the voter, remote voting makes it impossible to verify that the voter could cast their vote confidentially.
France allowed mail-in voting from 1958 to 1975. It was replaced by proxy voting by law 75-1239 in December 1975. The reasons given at the time to get rid of mail-in voting are the same reasons not to reintroduce it today, namely, that it can and did permit significant fraud.
Mail-in voting offers opportunities for fraud
A major difficulty in organizing political voting is that no single person or organization is trusted to tally and report votes sincerely. A trustworthy voting process must make any attempt at tampering evident. This is very difficult with mail-in voting because the chain of custody is long.
The voting process in France ensures that every point of the chain of custody of votes and vote tallies is verified by multiple people, and any voter is authorized to observe it. Voting is done with paper ballots which the voter places in a transparent ballot box, which never leaves the polling station. Any voter who is registered in the same municipality can observe both the voting (which takes place over a single day) and the tallying at the polling station. Fraud at this stage requires controlling or intimidating all would-be observers, which is a high threshold. The threshold for polling-station fraud over mail-in votes is a lot lower. It is impractical to verify that the mail received over the course of days or even weeks was kept securely, that none of it was thrown away and that extra votes are not added.
It is also more difficult to prevent impersonation with mailed-in votes. At best, casting a mail-in vote on behalf of someone else requires the knowledge of some secret code that was mailed to the voter, and of the voter's signature. Both of these are very easy to do for the entity that organizes the vote. Other would-be fraudsters need to intercept mail, which is a higher threshold, but less high than impersonating someone who is supposed to be physically present.
Another difficulty with mail-in voting is that it makes coercion and vote selling easy. Even if it was possible to validate the chain of custody of the ballot after it was filled by the voter, remote voting makes it impossible to verify that the voter could cast their vote confidentially.
