Posted on 09/12/2024 1:09:38 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — 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 over 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. They told DeJoy, “We have not seen improvement or concerted efforts to remediate our concerns.”
“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.”
A message seeking a response from the U.S. Postal Service was not immediately returned.
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 over 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 Nov. 5.
The letter went out on the day the first mailed ballots of this year’s general election were being sent, to absentee voters in Alabama.
Postal Service officials told reporters last month that almost 98 percent of ballots were returned to election officials within three days in 2020, and in 2022, the figure was nearly 99 percent. DeJoy said he would like to inch closer to 100 percent this election cycle and that the Postal Service is better positioned to handle ballots than four years ago.
But 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.
In addition to being signed by the current and incoming presidents for both groups of election officials, the leaders of groups that represent local election officials in 25 states were listed.
The election officials warned that any election mail returned to an election office as undeliverable could trigger a process outlined in federal law for maintaining accurate lists of registered voters. That means a voter could be moved to “inactive” status and be required to take additional action to verify their address to participate in the election, the officials said in the letter.
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 Aug. 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.
Kansas will count ballots postmarked on or before Election Day if they arrive within three days. The Republican-controlled Legislature created that grace period in 2017 over concerns that mail delivery had slowed after the Postal Service shut down seven mail-processing centers in the state. That left much of the state’s mail handled through larger centers in Denver, Amarillo, Texas, and Kansas City, Missouri.
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.
In their letter Wednesday, election officials said colleagues across the U.S. have reported that Postal Service staff, from managers to mail carriers, are uninformed about the service’s policies for handling election-related mail, give them inconsistent guidance and misdeliver ballots.
“There is no amount of proactive communication election officials can do to account for USPS’s inability to meet their own service delivery timelines,” the officials wrote. “State and local election officials need a committed partner in USPS.”
So they’re already setting up the steal ahead of time.
Again
No? Then do not vote by mail.
With some exceptions - like the military?
Sorry, I don’t agree unless states are required to go back to having local polling places. I have limited mobility and the polling places for my precinct is in a building with a second story parking lot with steep stairs and so many precincts that the last time I voted in person I stood in line for 3 hours. That is being done by the dems deliberately. I do think it should be age and heath limited and I think you should be required to request a ballot be mailed each election.
I suppose there are many folks like me who have personal examples of incompetence with mail delivery.
I now write addresses in block capitals only. Who knows how many post office employees can read cursive?
Yes. And people who will actually be absent from their home area on election day, and people who are physically unable to go to the polls.
We can thank Mr. DeJoy for at least part of the dysfunction of the Post Office. I have little doubt this will be used to have the Board of Governors of the Postal Service fire him, since Biden/Harris have put a majority of Democrats on that board.
My son, a Veteran, has worked for PO for years now. He told me his station is really strict about ballots, being scanned, counted, recorded and mailed out and any ballots received on election day will be hand delivered by supervisor to all the right precincts. This is for Michigan.
Article few weeks ago about PO warehouse that doesn’t process mail had hired truck drivers to load over a million ballots and deliver them to PA in 2020.
The Deep State is starting the steal early this year. No doubt they know that we know they will obviously and blatantly cheat and dare us to do anything about it...
Like Christmas rush. Any sort of peak event overwhelms a system. Pretty basic stuff.
I always vote on election day in person.
“And that is why the law of the land should rrequire people who want to vote to get off their duffs and go down to their friendly neighborhood polling place. I have done that every election since 1976. No biggie.”
Within a decade, we’ll all be voting on the internet anyway.
Setting us up for the cheat bomb.
It took days to print and sign the extras they needed.
It’s going to take time for the USPS to gather up all the Trump ballots and SHRED them.
I have lived in a lot of different places and the officials have managed to have polling places. Internet voting sounds like a bad idea.
A big AMEN to that! Last election I voted at the polling place. My wife and daughter voted by mail.
THIS time we’re ALL voting in person!
So the election officials that sent this "warning" letter don't want to clean up their voter rolls.
Tells you right there that these are dems trying to preserve the cheat.
Why can’t we reregister to vote every election? We do it for many things in life. I think reregistering every two years would solve a lot of problems.
Congress tried to pass the John Lewis voting laws to tighten up voting, but it never gets through one chamber or the other. Maybe next year….
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