Why Do Republicans Hate Vote-By-Mail?

Neal Waters/ZUMA

For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis and more, subscribe to Mother Jones’ newsletters.More threats from our hydroxychloroquine-addled commander-in-chief:

President Trump escalated his criticism of voting by mail, threatening to withhold federal funding from Michigan after the state announced plans to send applications for absentee ballots to all registered voters ahead of primary and general elections due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Mr. Trump, who has repeatedly complained about voting by mail, tweeted Wednesday: “This was done illegally and without authorization by a rogue Secretary of State. I will ask to hold up funding to Michigan if they want to go down this Voter Fraud path!” He also inaccurately said the state was sending out absentee ballots, rather than applications.
….Mr. Trump has often threatened to withhold funds from cities or states over policy differences without following through. It wasn’t immediately clear what funds he could hold up. The recent stimulus funding designed to provide states with coronavirus support is already law.

The weird thing about all this is that vote-by-mail doesn’t really favor either party. Republicans are petrified at the thought of all-mail elections, but it’s not clear why. Just tradition, I guess, since Republicans are always opposed to anything that might make voting easier. If they were smart, they’d get on the vote-by-mail bandwagon and then put some of their impressive voter suppression brainpower to work on how to use this to their advantage. There’s gotta be a way, right?