One of the most common questions I get about voting by mail is whether it will work in (Insert State or County here), where, didn’t I know, the rough and tumble of politics is nothing like in Oregon.

I’m never quite sure how to evaluate these claims. Mike and Thad are working on vote fraud, and perhaps have more to write on this, but everything I’ve seen indicates that outright vote fraud is really quite infrequent (see Tova Wang on this same point; John Fund’s book is the most commonly cited source on fraud).

Nonetheless, stories like this one out of Muncie, IN continue to disturb those who worry about absentee balloting and fraud. In this case, an egregious case of ballot fraud was uncovered in 2003 (and charged in 1999), and officials warn that they’ll be especially vigilant in 2007.