USPS Sprints to Deliver Ballots: A Record 4.2 Billion Pieces of Political Mail in Two Months
WASHINGTON: The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is taking an array of special measures, from longer hours and extra staffing to special ballot lines at its branches, to make sure mail-in ballots for Tuesday's November 3 midterm elections are delivered in time to be counted, Reuters reported. Over the last two months, USPS has delivered tens of millions of ballots and a record 4.2 billion pieces of political marketing mail, more than 300 million pieces above the 2024 election cycle.
USPS, an independent agency of the executive branch, is conducting expedited handling, extra deliveries and special pickups of ballots. Some branches may extend their hours to handle ballots and set up a "Ballot Postmark Only" line at retail counters or a drive-through Ballot Mail option. Postal facilities are running daily, and sometimes multiple, sweeps in the final days to search for any remaining ballots, and on Sunday, November 1, USPS brought on extra staff to collect, postmark and process mail to expedite ballot deliveries.
The pressure on the Postal Service is greater than ever this year. President Donald Trump ordered the agency to write rules that would bar it from delivering ballots if states did not agree to turn over lists of eligible voters, and some voters have expressed concern about voting by mail. The Supreme Court blocked Trump and USPS from enforcing those rules in September. According to various surveys, Democratic voters disproportionately use mail-in ballots compared with Republicans.
In the 2024 presidential election, USPS delivered 99.2 million ballots to and from voters, and about 30 percent of votes were cast by mail, down from 46 percent in 2020. Amber McReynolds, chair of the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors, said voting by mail seemed to be a little higher than in prior midterm elections, in part because ballots went out earlier in some states. She noted that USPS has been delivering ballots since the Civil War at the direction of President Abraham Lincoln, and said the agency works in a cross-partisan, non-partisan and apolitical way, with its workers "delivering democracy."
In Golden, Colorado, acting postmaster John Douglas has been getting to work at 4 a.m., far earlier than normal, to make sure ballots are getting delivered. He said that in the final days, carriers check every box and every house, even if there is no mail to be delivered that day. "We want to get everything home. We want to get everything delivered into the right hands," Douglas said. About 20 miles away, the one-million-square-foot Denver Processing and Distribution Center is handling tens of millions of pieces of political and election mail; on a single day last week, it processed 3.5 million pieces of political marketing mail.
On Election Day, postal workers will make extra trips to postal facilities to collect the last ballots, or USPS may drive directly to election offices to get ballots in hand. State rules vary widely: some states accept ballots as long as they are postmarked by November 3, while others, like Colorado, require ballots to be in the possession of an election official by 7 p.m. Mountain Time on Tuesday, except for military and overseas ballots. USPS has also launched a special portal, electionmail.org, so local officials can get real-time help with mail-related ballot issues. McReynolds said USPS does not take public confidence in voting by mail for granted: "We take the trust we've earned with them very seriously."
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 美国邮政局（USPS）投递车辆在 Massachusetts 州 Waltham 一处邮政设施外列队（2020年1月摄，资料图）。照片：Sam LaRussa，CC BY 2.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。
