So no sorting facilities in Flint, Grand Rapids, Lansing, Mackinaw City and so on???
What kind of clown arranges things in that manner?
“What kind of clown arranges things in that manner?”
The USPS.
The sorting machines are used for carrier route sorting. Those create a bundle for each customer and arrange them in order in a box. The more carrier routes that are sorted in a central location, the more efficient the system is. Here in rural Virginia they used to sort manually at each post office. Now those people are gone and they sort at a very large post office near DC. Then the sorted mail is sent back to each rural post office.
You'll probably notice that there are longer "local" and "out of town" slots. That's the reason.
I have family in Toledo, Ohio. Mail for their Ohio goes up to Detroit for sorting then back down to Ohio.
Court opinion: "The panel further held that for purposes of § 521(b)(9), when a final Agency order is mailed to a party, and there is not proof of actual receipt, there is a rebuttable presumption that the order was received within three days of mailing."
Personally, I've had first class mail held up for as long as three months. That particular incident was delay in utility bills, such that my service was disconnected. No recourse.
The various States have statute saying the USPO delivers mail within five days, or ten days, or some other interval.
Now, you ask what "clown" arranges "things in that matter". It's becoming more and more clear that the USPS does not have any hard delivery timing requirement; it's a "best effort" service. Just like Internet e-mail -- no guarantees when you will receive a submitted message. So the USPS arranges things to minimize costs as much as it can, subject to the rising number of complaints made to elected officials.
Frankly, the USPS seems to care more about timely delivery of third class mail. There is Federal statute about second-class mail delay, but not first.
So write your Congressman to add this law: "The USPS shall create a new class of mail, to be used for all mail-in and absentee election ballots, in which there is defined a Service Level Agreement that such mail shall be delivered within three business days, without fail. Diversion or delay of this new class of mail shall be treated as a Felony with a minimum sentence of three years in a correctional facility."