USPS is still rushing ballot delivery in 18 states still accepting them

The U.S. Postal Service is still using its “extraordinary measures” to expedite the delivery of mailed ballots in much of the country, and has vowed to continue to do so until all deadlines have passed. 

In 18 states and Washington, D.C., election offices continued to accept ballots by mail after Tuesday’s election. In those states, voters simply had to send their ballots in, with a postmark, by Election Day. USPS will continue to take steps to fastrack ballot delivery in all of those states, in some cases as late as Nov. 19. 

“The Postal Service continues to process and deliver any election mail that we receive,” said Marti Johnson, a USPS spokesperson. “We expected that ballots may move through our system past Election Day as some states accept mail-in ballots as timely where they are mailed on or before Election Day and are received a certain number of days later.”

The special steps the Postal Service is taking consist of extra deliveries and collections, special pickups, expanded hours at processing plants, Sunday collections and visual checks of various points for ballots. It is also conducting daily sweeps and “all clears” at its facilities for ballots, and ensuring postmarks for any piece of mail identified as a ballot.

In a memorandum to postal supervisors, agency management said employees must “make every reasonable effort” to ensure ballots are delivered “as quickly as possible and no later than the applicable extended deadline.” It told plant employees to pay “special attention” to the states served by their facilities so they can stay attuned to the relevant deadlines. 

“The Postal Service works closely with the local boards of elections, along with our management teams and union leadership across all facilities and local post offices to ensure the delivery of ballots,” Johnson said. 

With many races around the country still too close to call, late-arriving ballots could make the difference in who emerges victorious.

USPS made collections from blue drop boxes on Sunday, which it usually does not do, and sent them out early Monday. On Monday and Tuesday, facilities were required to take special trips to local boards of elections to drop off ballots. Local postmasters will continue coordinating those drop-offs until the last day each state accepts mail ballots.

In the week that ended Oct. 25, which is the most recent data available, USPS delivered 96% of election mail on time according to its one-to-five-day delivery windows. That was down slightly from its performance earlier in the month, when it delivered 97.8% on time. Its average delivery time sped up slightly to one day, however, down from 1.4 days. 

In some key areas, delivery lagged the national average. In Georgia, for example, only 87.6% of ballots were delivered on time and took an average of two days in the week ending Oct. 25. 

Postal management has warned its data is incomplete as USPS workers frequently pull ballots out of the normal mailstream to more rapidly get them to voters or back to local officials. For the same reason, some ballots marked as late may have simply not received a final scan because they bypassed normal processing. Additionally, not all election mail pieces have trackable barcodes.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy promised to make “all necessary resources” available to support election mail delivery and noted the agency has a “robust and tested process” for election season. DeJoy also paused some of his key reform initiatives until after the election. Still, in states that did not have extended deadlines, USPS encouraged voters to send in their ballots one week before Election Day.