State and local election officials from across the country on Wednesday warned that problems with the nation's mail delivery system threaten to disenfranchise voters in the upcoming presidential election, telling the head of the U.S. Postal Service that it hasn't fixed persistent deficiencies.
In an alarming letter, the officials said that in the past year, including the just-concluded primary season, mailed ballots that were postmarked on time were received by local election offices days after the deadline to be counted. They also noted that properly addressed election mail was being returned to them as undeliverable, a problem that could automatically send voters to inactive status through no fault of their own, potentially creating chaos when those voters show up to cast a ballot.
The officials also said that repeated outreach to the Postal Service to resolve the issues had failed and that the widespread nature of the problems made it clear these were "not one-off mistakes or a problem with specific facilities. Instead, it demonstrates a pervasive lack of understanding and enforcement of USPS policies among its employees."
The letter to U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy came from two groups that represent top election administrators in all 50 states.
"We have not seen improvement or concerted efforts to remediate our concerns," they told DeJoy.
"We implore you to take immediate and tangible corrective action to address the ongoing performance issues with USPS election mail service," they added. "Failure to do so will risk limiting voter participation and trust in the election process."
'Ready to deliver'
The Postal Service on Wednesday reiterated DeJoy's assurances that it's well positioned to swiftly deliver election mail despite being in the midst of a network modernization that has caused some delivery hiccups. Mail is being delivered in 2.7 days on average, officials said.
However, the Postal Service is urging voters not to procrastinate.
"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," Adrienne Marshall, director of election mail and government services, said in a statement.
The two groups, the National Association of Secretaries of State and the National Association of State Election Directors, said local election officials "in nearly every state" are receiving timely postmarked ballots after Election Day and outside the three to five business days USPS claims as the standard for first-class mail.
The letter comes less than two weeks after DeJoy said in an interview that the Postal Service was ready to handle a flood of mail ballots expected as part of this November's presidential election and as former President Donald Trump continues to sow doubts about U.S. elections by falsely claiming he won in 2020.
That year, amid the global pandemic, election officials reported sending just more than 69 million ballots in the mail, a substantial increase from four years earlier.
While it's likely that number will be smaller now, many voters have embraced mail voting and come to rely on it. And both Democrats and Republicans have launched efforts to push supporters to vote early, either in person or by mail to "bank" their votes before Election Day on November 5.
Officials in rural states have been critical of the Postal Service for years as it has consolidated mail-processing centers to cut its costs and financial losses.
Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab, the recent past president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, sent his own letter in recent days to DeJoy. He said nearly 1,000 ballots from his state's August 6 primary election couldn't be counted because they arrived too late or without postmarks — and more continue to come in.
"The Pony Express is more efficient at this point," Schwab posted on the social media platform X in late August.
Schwab and other Kansas election officials also have said some ballots arrive on time but without postmarks, which keeps them from being counted under Kansas law. What's more, Schwab told DeJoy, local postal clerks have told election officials that they can't add postmarks later even if it's clear that the Postal Service handled the ballot ahead of the mail-in deadline.
Schwab has promoted the use of local ballot drop boxes for voting in advance, breaking with other Republicans who have suggested without evidence that they can be sources of fraud. Schwab has long said the boxes are more secure than the U.S. mail.
"Keep your ballot out of the hands of the federal government!" he advised voters in a post on X after the August primary.
