In 2020, when the United States Postal Service began an ambitious plan to modernize and consolidate services – in the middle of the pandemic – its slow service wound up disenfranchising tens of thousands of voters whose ballots never made it to their elections offices in time.
Four years later – by some measures – USPS performance is now actually worse, with another nail-biter of an election fast-approaching.
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Compounding the risk that slow mail could affect the election: NBC found some of the country’s slowest mail is in presidential swing states with strict mail ballot delivery deadlines.
“It’s a disgrace,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said of USPS delivery performance. “They need to understand the importance [of election mail] and they need to make no more excuses.
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“Get in gear and take this seriously.”
Raffensperger – along with dozens of other Democratic and Republican state election directors – has called in recent weeks for Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to take immediate action to address USPS delays in order to avoid voter disenfranchisement and to preserve trust in elections.
But the situation is especially dire in Georgia, where officials have already spent years worrying about the possibility of a contested 2024 election for other reasons.
The Math in Georgia
Georgia is home to the country’s worst mail performance, largely due to a consolidation in processing centers earlier this year that is still causing major disruptions. According to USPS quarterly statistics, only 66% of local first class letters since July have been delivered within two days, and less than 40% of election mail was delivered on-time last spring. The USPS lists target goals of 92.5% for both metrics.
Georgia state records indicate thousands of ballots – more than 3% of all votes cast by mail in the primaries – were rejected for arriving late to elections offices. In 2020, the state rejected just 0.23% of ballots for arriving late, according to the MIT Election Data + Science Lab, supporting Raffensperger’s belief that exceptionally slow 2024 mail is responsible for voter disenfranchisement. Georgia, like 31 other states, requires mail ballots to be delivered to elections offices by Election Day.
If 3% of mail ballots are disqualified this November in Georgia – where Raffensperger says 300,000 Georgians may vote by mail – delivery delays could result in 9,000 voters never seeing their legitimate ballots counted.
DeJoy had promised U.S. senators back in April he’d “fix” Georgia’s problems “within 60 days.” But more than 150 days later, Georgia still has the slowest mail in the country, falling far short of the USPS’ own benchmarks.
NBC also discovered today’s on-time performance numbers would look ever worse, had the Postal Service not loosened its standards in 2022 for what it considers an “on-time” delivery for first-class letters.
A spokesperson for the USPS pointed out that election mail has been given higher priority than first class letters ever since a federal judge ordered it in Sept. 2020, and that 99.9% of all election mail got to its destination within seven days in both 2020 and 2022.
“Election Mail routinely outperforms…regular service,” according to the spokesperson.
But Postmaster Louis DeJoy also stressed to members of the media in August that voters should avoid dropping ballots in the mail within seven days of their state’s deadline, just to be safe.
He’s also consistently stood behind his plan to modernize and consolidate postal services, so the USPS can operate more efficiently – and without budget deficits. But so far, neither goal has materialized.
Other Slow States
Two other swing states with strict Election Day mail ballot deadlines were near the bottom of the
Postal Service’s most recently quarterly performance report: North Carolina, with only 86% of local first-class mail delivered within two days, and Wisconsin, with only 71% delivered on-time.
And while the 2000 presidential election, ultimately decided by a few thousand late-arriving mail ballots in Florida, was a lesson in how a tiny percentage of mail ballots can have an enormous impact, some election officials anticipate bigger 2024 problems with Congressional or local races, often decided by just a handful of votes.
“The post office is influencing elections and hurting trust in elections by not taking this issue seriously,” said Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab. “It seems like every election cycle, they've been regressing, and not improving.”
Schwab sent his own recent letter to DeJoy, excoriating the postmaster for failing to properly deliver mail in Kansas and for disenfranchising approximately 1,000 voters in the state’s recent primary.
“They're taking our mail and shipping it out of state, to have it hopefully show up at the clerk's office across the street,” he said.
DeJoy responded to election officials last Friday, detailing his commitment to working with them to “ensure that all ballot mail is delivered in a timely and secure manner.”
“This work will result in operational excellence,” he wrote.
The Future of Slow Mail
The Postmaster’s plan to modernize the USPS through consolidation has been controversial from the start, with resistance coming from both the American Postal Workers Union (APWU) and the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC). Under pressure this spring, DeJoy agreed to slow down consolidations until January 2025, after the election.
But critics say his plan to save money will only slow mail further and destroy the USPS’ business.
“Slowing things down does not save money,” said PRC Vice Chairman Thomas Day. “[Mail] that – not that long ago – was delivered overnight regularly, was switched over to being done in two days. And now we may see it turn into three days.”
Mail slowdowns might also have a psychological effect on voters. A recent study by Washington State University found a correlation between mail speed and voter turnout, with faster delivery speeds raising the probability voters would cast ballots by 3.42%.
But Day says his concern goes beyond ballots; the reforms have slowed the delivery of everything from prescriptions to paychecks to party invitations.
“Reliability had always been a cornerstone of the Postal Service.”
What You Need to Know About Your Mail Ballot
Postmaster DeJoy said in an August media briefing that voters should be confident in the Postal Service’s ability to deliver mail ballots within seven days. He pointed to the average time to deliver a piece of election mail – just 1.3 days nationally in 2024 – as proof the USPS was up to the task.
“I am confident we will succeed in delivering election mail this season, just as we’ve done in the past,” DeJoy said in August. “My message…please vote early!”
You can look up your region’s USPS performance here.
And, look up your state’s mail ballot deadlines here.
Kansas’ Schwab said the safest way to make sure your ballot gets to elections offices on-time is to take it to a dropbox yourself.
And Raffensperger suggests that if you live in a state where you can track your mail ballot online, use that tracking tool to make sure it was received by Election Day.
