'Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.’
That famous line is about as close as the United States Postal Service has to an official motto. It is inscribed on the massive post office across from Penn Station in New York City.
It means your mail will show up IF you do your part.
Times have changed. More people pay bills online. Less people send postcards. You are more likely to send an email or a text within the next 15 minutes than you are to write & mail a letter in the next year.
The Post Office, which has not taken taxpayer money in roughly 40 years, may need some house cleaning. It may need to update or streamline a system or two. The cashiers, at times, could be friendlier or faster. Yes, it may break an item or two regardless of how carelessly you pack it. And, YES, the operation is $160 billion in debt.
Losing money aside, the one thing the USPS does not seem to have a problem with is getting mail delivered in a timely manner to every single home & business in the United States of America. This has been the case since the days of Benjamin Franklin - like 1775! According to the independent federal agency, the US Mail delivery network grows by 4,221 new addresses each day.
Over 472.1 million pieces of mail are processed and delivered every 24-hours. Do you really believe that the proud men & women of ‘America’s Favorite Federal Agency’ will have trouble delivering, say 70 million mail-in ballots over a 6-week period of time? Be honest. The answer is NO.
Postal workers are up to the task of delivering your mail-in ballots this year, according to Judy Beard, a director for the American Postal Workers Union.
The US Postal Service may be a lot of things but ‘unreliable’ is not one of them. In my lifetime, I can only remember one note that I sent not arriving at its destination. That was because the mail truck was STOLEN and the letters were scattered across the countryside of Maine. I know this because the service found and returned my unopened bill a few weeks later with an apology.
Many key battleground states could sway the presidential election on November 3rd. Every vote counts. That is why the USPS General Counsel sent warnings in July to nearly 4 dozen states noting that it could not guarantee that all ballots would arrive to elections officials in time to be counted.
This warning was not because of issues on the Postal Service’s end. The warnings were sent because various states created arbitrary deadlines that did not logically coincide with prompt delivery standards.
The Secretary of State of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania received a warning because the Keystone State’s cutoff for mail-in ballot requests is only one week prior to Election Day. That is a tight window for someone to contact the elections board, have the information processed, send the ballot out, deliver the ballot to your home, have you fill it out, sign it, seal it, send it back, and have it delivered to the proper facility for scanning within 6 days. Yes, it could happen but why wait until the last minute?
The issue will not be with the carrier. In this case, it will be with the voter and the state’s deadline. Send it early and track it!
Any screw-ups on election day should be placed on politics and electioneering not at the feet of those who are walking up your sidewalk each day. After all, they are the feet that deliver 47% of the world’s total mail….with no major problems.
Only 4% of Pennsylvania voters cast via mail in 2018. That will exceed 50% this time. I have my concerns. However, Pennsylvania’s procedure to have registered voters request their mail-in ballot seems to be on point even if the final deadline is too tight.
I feel the major issues with this election will likely be found in states that send unrequested ballots in scattershot fashion to any address in their system. We may have a scanner issue here, a pet cat registered to vote there, or an election judge pleading guilty to stuffing a ballot box in South Philly but mass-mailing ballots seems like the area most likely ripe for fraud - especially in areas where voter registration is over 100% or the deceased are still on the rolls.
This blanket approach is referred to as ‘Universal’ mail-voting. Nine states and the District of Columbia are attempting to pull this stunt off.
In the end, your vote will be tabulated as it was in previous elections, whether you mail it or cast it in-person. Yes, there could be a glitch, human error, or theft of a Grumman delivery truck. However, the individual in Pennsylvania who is most likely keep your vote from being delivered is you.
The deadline to register to vote is October 19th. The deadline to request a mail-in ballot is October 27th (too late.)
Do not wait to request your mail-in ballot. Do not wait too long to properly fill it out and mail it in. Or, if you prefer to cast at a polling place, do not wait until 7:59pm to show up in-person on November 3rd.
Have questions about voting? PA residents click here: https://www.pavoterservices.pa.gov/Pages/SurePortalHome.aspx or call your county board of elections.
Kevin Battle has no affiliation with the United States Postal Service. He co-hosts the KDKA Radio Morning Show with Larry Richert M-F 5a-9a.
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