Today's New York Times doesn't literally go there. And the conclusion is statistical, not based on hard cases. But it is hard to avoid connecting the dots:
The ongoing move from in-person to mail-in voting tilts the balance in favor of fraud by Republicans. Extracts below the thingy.
Here are the dots, in the article "Error and Fraud at Issue as Absentee Voting Rises". You connect them.
Lawmakers have cut back on early voting in person, imposed identification requirements...But almost nothing has been done about the distinctive challenges posed by absentee ballots...Ohio's Republican secretary of state recently sent absentee ballot applications to every registered voter in the state. And Republican lawmakers in Florida recently revised state law to allow ballots to be mailed wherever voters want...
So lawmakers, primarily Republican, have pushed their states away from in-person and towards absentee. Why would they do that?
Daniel A. Smith, a political scientist at the University of Florida, said "The conventional wisdom is that Republicans use absentee ballots and Democrats vote early, "...Republicans are in fact more likely than Democrats to vote absentee.
Why is it a problem?
There is a bipartisan consensus that voting by mail, whatever its impact, is more easily abused than other forms. In a 2005 report signed by President Jimmy Carter and James A. Baker III, who served as secretary of state under the first President George Bush, the Commission on Federal Election Reform concluded, "Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud. "… "There has been not one case of fraud in early voting, " [the Leon County elections supervisor] Mr. Sancho said. "The only cases of election fraud have been in absentee ballots. "… Heather Gerken, a law professor at Yale… said, "…all the evidence of stolen elections involves absentee ballots and the like. "
So there you have it: Republicans are pushing their state to a voting method that is favored by Republicans, and is proven to be a significant source of voter fraud, unlike in-person voting. As I said, the implication is a statistical one: no doubt some Democrats also take advantage of mail-in to commit fraud. But I see smoke, and I call fire.