I think voting by mail makes sense. You can make decisions in your leisure and think about the issues.

“…record numbers of Oregonians registered to vote, and almost 87 percent of them cast ballots.”
“Without polling places, vote-by-mail eliminates the expensive and time-consuming recruitment and training of poll workers. As a result, the cost of a vote-by-mail election is nearly 30 percent less than the cost of a polling place election.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40032-2004Dec31.html

“Entering September, the campaign had nearly 50,000 identified supporters. 22,000 or nearly half of these voters, were occasional voters, and would not normally vote in an off year election. These supporters were aggressively encouraged to apply to vote by mail.” -and- “Entering Election Day, the Newsom campaign had already turned out 8,000 voters through its vote by mail program. In the end, just over 90% of those voters who applied to vote by mail returned their ballots.” -and- “On Election Day Gavin Newsom lost. He won Election Night because he received 20,000 more absentee votes than Matt Gonzalez. ”
http://www.completecampaigns.com/article.asp?articleid=27

See http://www.sos.state.or.us/executive/votebymail/pdf_files/Southwell.pdf which is a historical review of the last 5 years. I just read the abstract, but it seemed to be favorable towards voting by mail.

Also, CNN cited a study that 1″ of rain caused republicans to lose .5 points (where the rain occurred) but democrats lost 2 points. This to me spoke of a generational issues that might go beyond “social norms” encouraging voter turn out that aren’t present in vote-by-mail. I believe Switerzland has an aging population. One of the poll workers, who was in her 70s, told me that most of the poll workers in my county were older individuals. That about 20% or so where going to stop participating because the election equipment was too complex/heavy to manage. My point is, I think some demographics of the population are LONELY. That voting on voting day can be an exciting and engaging activity for them. A time to see their friends or acquaintances, and just as an excuse to get out. However, there are other demographics (those who historically don’t show up on voting day…the youth vote for instance) who don’t suffer from this problem. There are also the disabled or the time-impaired (young parents) who can’t make it to the polls as conveniently.

Motiving people to vote is important. Like you indicated, people are inherently lazy and typically do what’s in their best interest, and only rarely do things that don’t greatly benefit themselves. Obama won largely because he convinced people that giving up their time and money in small amounts (in aggregate) can over power those who can give up more time and money (lobbyists) who traditionally overwhelm.

In the above analysis, you willfully ignore the positive effects of a third-party candidates run, whether or not it wins.

Sometimes, as it was in both 2000 and 2004, and to a lesser extent in this 2008 election, third-party candidates are different enough from the major party candidates, between whom there is often little substantive difference, that to “spoil” an election is no great matter. In that case, a vote for a third party draws attention to issues (read: health care, marriage equality, corporate regulation, foreign policy) and may be a barometer that shifts the approach of a major party if it loses too many votes.

For instance, if, for two consecutive elections, fairly middle-of-the-road, or even just-right-of-center democrats run against a staunch conservative, but still lose a substantial amount of votes to a particular third party associated with the conventional left, then the next democratic candidate might be compelled to run under the banner of, let’s say, “Change”, in order to both represent the desires of its constituency and cash in on those formerly “wasted” votes.

Ideally, instant-runoff voting will someday allow these considerations to obscelesce, and we will understand just how many people have voted against their consciences for hundreds of years, but until then it is the duty of each voter to pull the major party of their choice to a position where their basic needs and concerns can be addressed without the fear of “wasting” their votes.