"In November, when voters elect three City Council members from each of four large districts, they will do so with a version of ranked-choice voting not used in any other U.S. city.
Voters will be allowed to choose up to six council candidates in order of preference, and candidates will only need 25% of first-, second- and potentially even third- and fourth-choice votes to win."
So, first, to be clear: I’m in favor of vote-by-mail. I believe it’s more of an enabler than a risk.
That said:
First, so is domestic violence. If a person is willing to break that law, why wouldn’t they also be willing to break a law and force their spouse to fill in a ballot their way?
Second, how would we know that is not a problem? Do we have studies that have surveyed survivors of domestic violence to ask whether or not their spouse ever forced them to fill in a mail-in ballot a certain way, which found that it’s rare?
Third, imagine a world of Project 2025, where Brown Shirts exist again. Or, just mafia-esque gangsters, if you will. Being illegal is not going to stop organized crime from forcing an entire apartment block from filling in a ballot in front of an enforcer. And I think it’s naïve to think it couldn’t happen today, anymore that we were naïve to believe defeating the Nazis in 1945 meant we wouldn’t see the rise of his kind again being a threat 71 years later.
I do think there are solutions, in rescindable votes and re-voting; there are voting systems (software) designed with these sorts of features built in. With these systems, you can change your vote as many times as you like up until the polls close; this wouldn’t prevent abusive-spouse scenarios, but would make mass coercion much harder. But I do think there’s opportunity for abuse with mail-in ballots, much more so in a world of Project 2025, where the people braking the law against coercion are also pals with the ones charged with enforcing it.