The letter describes cases in which ballots did not reach officials on time due to USPS delays. In other cases, ballots that did arrive on time were not postmarked and could not be counted.
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The U.S. Postal Service will play a big role in this upcoming election, but it may not be a good one, state and local election officials say. he suggested in a letter on Wednesday.
The letter from the National Association of Secretaries of State and the National Association of State Election Directors warned that problems with the postal service could lead to voters losing their right to vote in the upcoming election.
The letter is addressed to the head of the United States Postal Service, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, and warns that he has failed to address ongoing deficiencies in the system. Even as the primary elections were underway this summer, the letter states that local election officials across the U.S. had noticed a disturbing trend in the ability of postal services to deliver mail on time.
With less than two months until Election Day, the Postal Service does not have much time to fix the problems with ballot delivery. The letter from state officials urges the Postal Service to fix its inefficiencies to ensure a smooth election process.
“State and local election officials need a committed partner like the USPS. We urge you to take immediate, concrete corrective action to address the ongoing performance issues with the USPS Election Mail Service,” the letter said.
What problems did you have with USPS?
“Over the past year, election officials across the country have raised serious questions about processing facility operations, lost or delayed election mail, and deficiencies in employee training that impair the USPS’s ability to deliver election mail in a timely and accurate manner,” the letter said.
They cited cases where postmarked ballots sent to election officials in a timely manner did not arrive until long after Election Day. Officials also point out that in some cases, properly addressed absentee ballots are returned to election officials, potentially causing voters to become inactive, leading to their incapacitation.
This lack of speed in delivering first-class mail-in ballots is considered a violation of the postal service’s standard, which should be between three and five business days.
What does USPS say about the election?
The USPS released a statement in response to the letter: “We are ready to deliver. We succeeded in delivering a historic amount of mail-in ballots in 2020; we did so again in 2022; and we will do so again in November 2024,” said Adrienne Marshall, director of election mail and government services, in a statement to USA TODAY.
DeJoy said in a recent interview with the Associated Press that the Postal Service is ready to process the large volume of mail-in votes for this year’s election.
Other officials raise concerns about the efficiency of USPS ballots
Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab had already sent DeJoy his own letter in recent days. According to the letter, nearly 1,000 ballots from last month’s primary election could not be counted by officials because they arrived late or were not postmarked.
“The Pony Express is more efficient at this point,” Schwab said last month on X, formerly Twitter.
Schwab said some ballots may arrive at election officials on time, but they are not postmarked, making them inadmissible under Kansas law. Schwab has urged Kansas residents to use local mailboxes rather than trusting them to the Postal Service.
When does postal voting begin?
This letter comes after the first ballots were sent to absentee voters in Alabama today.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, voters in other states have already received ballots or will receive them in the coming days. The following states are mailing their ballots more than 45 days before Election Day: Arkansas, Delaware, Kentucky, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
All of these states began mailing ballots before Alabama; the following states will mail them in the next few days: Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Texas, Virginia, and Wyoming.
Fernando Cervantes Jr. is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach him at [email protected] and follow him on X @fern_cerv_.
