‘Don’t delay. If you choose to vote by mail, please mail early,’ a top Postal Service official says.
The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) said it has performed well in delivering election mail so far in October, but it cautioned that voters should still mail in their ballots early to avoid possible delays.
The postal network is operating effectively without any significant disruptions, the agency said in an update on Oct. 23. It noted that “ballot mail performance scores were high,” with 97.8 percent of ballot mail delivered in a timely manner. About 99.9 percent was delivered within seven days.
Still, the Postal Service recommended that people place their ballots in the mail early so they can be counted.
“As we anticipate an uptick of ballots in the mailstream over the coming days, we are working to ensure the ballots of every individual who chooses to vote by mail are delivered quickly and securely,” Adrienne Marshall, USPS director of election and government mail services, said in a statement on Oct. 23.
“As in past elections, the United States Postal Service is ready to deliver your ballot on time. But don’t delay. If you choose to vote by mail, please mail early.”
Earlier this week, officials said the Postal Service reopened all of its mail processing centers in parts of Florida and North Carolina hit by recent hurricanes.
Steven Monteith, USPS executive vice president and chief marketing officer, said at a news conference that all the processing centers in North Carolina were back in operation as of Oct. 22, as were all of Florida’s centers. He said mail can be delivered to all but 4,600 addresses in North Carolina and about 600 in Florida.
It’s not clear how many voters in the hardest-hit areas will return their ballots by mail. Early in-person voting has gotten off to a strong start in North Carolina, where election officials have taken a number of steps to make voting as accessible as possible for voters affected by the storms.
In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis extended early voting until Election Day for certain counties and modified deadlines for election supervisors to send out mail ballots.
As of Oct. 22, the Postal Service had moved retail sites in eight communities and brought mobile units into another 13 in western North Carolina around Asheville and Charlotte. In Florida, it moved 10 retail sites in the Tampa–St. Petersburg metropolitan area and another three in and around Fort Myers.
Several weeks ago, state election officials sounded the alarm about possible mail delays around the Nov. 5 election.
In a letter dated Sept. 11, the National Association of State Election Directors and the National Association of Secretaries of State said they had “ongoing concerns” about USPS’s ability to perform efficiently.
They wrote that over the past year, 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 sent to voters was being returned to the two groups’ member organizations as undeliverable—a problem that could automatically cause voters to be designated as inactive through no fault of their own, potentially creating chaos when they show up at the polls to cast a ballot.
“This has affected a range of election mail, including informational mailers about critical election information and voter address confirmation cards, as well as ballots,” the letter reads.
However, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy responded that the USPS is ready for the election and a potentially significant number of mail ballots.
“The most common reason that a mailpiece is returned to sender is poor address quality, but we are working to ensure that whatever the cause, we resolve the issue quickly,” DeJoy wrote on Sept. 13.
As of Oct. 24, data provided by the University of Florida show that nearly 17 million mail-in ballots have been sent in by voters across dozens of states.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.