With the Nov. 5 election drawing close, election officials from every state in the U.S. are concerned about the US Postal Service’s ability to handle mail-in ballots.
“Over the course of the last year, election officials across the country have raised serious questions about processing facility operations, lost or delayed election mail, and front-line training deficiencies impacting USPS’s ability to deliver election mail in a timely and accurate manner,” said a letter sent Wednesday to Postmaster general Louis DeJoy by the National Association of State Election Directors.
In the letter, the NASED said many USPS employees are uninformed about the service’s policies regarding election mail. Furthermore, it said this issue has resulted in inconsistent guidance given to election officials and ballots being deliberately held to remediate erroneous billing issues or otherwise improperly processed. These issues can result in voters being disenfranchised.
“Despite repeated engagement with USPS Election and Political Mail headquarters staff and state/regional Managers of Customer Relations, we have not seen improvement or concerted efforts to remediate our concerns,” said the NASED letter. “In fact, many of the issues raised by election officials are echoed in the recent findings of the USPS Office of Inspector General Audit, Election Mail Readiness for the 2024 General Election.”
In some cases, election officials have reported that mail sent to voters is being marked as undeliverable at higher than usual rates, even in cases where the voter did not move. It said this issue has impacted a range of election mail, from informational mailers about critical election information to ballots. Undeliverable mail issues can disenfranchise voters and put eligible voters on the path to having their voter registration record canceled.
NASED acknowledged in the letter that USPS has more than 600,000 employees and that there are challenges associated with training such a large workforce. However, it said that, in its estimation, issues with USPS are more than one-off mistakes and indicate a “pervasive lack of understanding and enforcement of USPS policies among its employees.”
Late last month, the USPS issued its own update about preparations for the upcoming election.
“Our letter carriers and facilities teams across the country, the 640,000 women and men of the Postal Service, are fully focused on the critical mission of delivering the nation’s election mail – just as we have done so excellently through this current primary season and as we have done in the past,” said DeJoy, per a press release. “We are proud to do our part to help citizens’ who choose to use the mail to vote to do so effectively.”
According to the press release, USPS delivered 99.89% of ballots from voters to election officials within seven days during the 2020 election and 99.93% were delivered during the same timeframe in 2022. It also said the USPS will implement proven extraordinary measures from Oct. 21 to Nov. 15, accounting for the weeks before and after the election, to further enhance timely delivery.
“Furthermore, the Postal Service will use its discretion to avoid unnecessary optics or perception concerns, even when not related to new initiatives, and even when there is no real possibility that they will impact the Election Mail performance of the Postal Service,” said the press release. “For example, management will suspend certain activities around collection management. Changes, such as replacement (unless due to vandalism) or removal of collection boxes, time changes to collections, or changes to eLocks will be suspended.”
USPS also got a recent boost with new trucks that have been met with a positive response from drivers. However, election officials are not the only ones who have noted USPS’ struggle in recent years.
In an X post last month, Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab said the “Pony Express is more efficient at this point.”
According to the Government Accountability Office, as of last year the USPS has long faced financial challenges. Recently, Audacy reported on a plan for the financially independent government agency to save money that could make mail delivery slower.
In a statement responding to the NASED’s Wednesday letter provided to USA Today, Adrienne Marshall, Director of Election Mail and Government Services, said: “We are ready to deliver. We were successful in 2020 delivering a historic volume of mail-in ballots; also in 2022 and will do so again in November 2024.”
An estimated 244 million Americans will be eligible to vote this November, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center. If turnout matches the 2020 election, 66.6% of eligible voters will cast 162 ballots. Per the Pew Research Center, 54% of people voted in-person in 2020 and this year, the Center for Election Innovation and Research reports that 36 states and Washington D.C. offer voters the ability to vote by mail without having to cite a reason.
“After a voter has applied for an absentee/mail ballot and that application has been verified, election officials mail out the ballots,” explained the National Conference of State Legislatures. Many states begin mailing ballots to voters at least 30 days before the election, though at least 14 cited by the conference do not (Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Utah and Washington).
While election officials have stressed to voters the importance of requesting and returning mail-in ballots early, they have been receiving timely postmarked ballots well after Election Day and well outside the three to five business days USPS claims as the First-Class delivery standard, the NASED letter said. In multiple states, election officials have even reported receiving dozens to hundreds of ballots 10 or more days after postmark.
“There is no amount of proactive communication election officials can do to account for USPS’s inability to meet their own service delivery timelines,” said NASED.