TOPEKA, Kan. – The Postmaster General Louis DeJoy reassured Americans Thursday morning that the Postal Service is ready to undertake what he called “heroic efforts” to deliver all mail-in ballots for the upcoming election.
In a virtual press conference, DeJoy said USPS will work around the clock and implement extraordinary measures to ensure the timely delivery of mail-in voting.
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During the 2020 election season, which was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, DeJoy said USPS delivered nearly 99% of the ballots from voters to election officials within seven days.
DeJoy also encouraged voters to use the post office to vote early.
“We are and must be the uniform element in the sea of variation. We don’t control when ballots are mailed by election officials or when they must be returned. But we do want to do our best to ensure that our system is effective for voters who choose to utilize us to cast their ballot. For that reason, we encourage the voting public to mail early if they choose to vote by mail and to put their return ballot back in the mail at least seven days before it is before, it must be back to their election official under the laws of the state where they are voting,” DeJoy said.
State and local election officials from across the country warned last week 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.
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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.”
The Postal Service 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 currently being delivered in 2.7 days on average, officials said, but the Postal Service is still 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.
DeJoy also said Thursday that the Postal Service has teams in place to tackle mail flagged as “undeliverable as addressed,” or any other problem that might arise with election mail.
____ Cassidy reported from Detroit.