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@PeteS in CA does everyone get mailed a ballot? How does that work if you vote in person? And why would anyone vote in person if they have a ballot in hand at home? Does the state pay postage to mail the ballot back?
Yes, every registered voter gets a ballot and voter's guides mailed to them. As best I can remember, that has been true since I returned to California and started voting in 1980. Pre-Covid, the voter's guides included the particular voter's poll location and precinct number. During and post Covid, mail-in and drop-off-bin voting was expanded and the latter created. For actual mailing, the return envelopes are postage-paid.
IOW, the opportunities for fraud are not in every registered receiving a ballot by mail, but in the lack of eligibility verification in the registration process, voter rolls not being maintained, and in the allowed timeframe for counting mail-in ballots (the drop-off bins are removed at the close of in-person voting).
For us, we've lived in our current home over 35 years. So our polling places over the years have ranged from someone's garage to a Catholic Church community hall to a community center that used to be part of a now-defunct high school. The drop-off bin nearest us is about 50 yards from our home at a school district office, so I walk over there to deposit our ballots. The bin is chained to the flagpole in front of the office (which used to be an elementary school), so it's reasonably secure (and monitored).
How our past and current procedures compare to those of other states, I do not know. I did not vote when I lived in Arizona, because I expected I would not stay there long-term and did not want to impose elected officials and ballot measures on a state/city in which I probably not be living very long. One voting option some states have that California does not is a single check-off to vote straight party. IMO, no state should have that, as eve one's party of preference will have idiots on the ballot. I've "voted for Snoopy" a few times over the decades.
