US Postal Service touts timely delivery of mail ballots despite concerns from election officials

The U.S. Postal Service said Monday nearly 100% of completed mail ballots were returned to election offices within a week for this year's presidential contest, despite hurricanes, some misdirected election mail and delivery concerns raised by state officials.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said postal workers processed more than 99 million general election ballots — making extra deliveries and collections and working to identify problems that could lead to incorrect deliveries. They also ensured ballots were delivered even after hurricanes brought devastation to parts of Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina just weeks before Election Day, he said.

Almost 99.9% of general election mail ballots were delivered to election officials within a week and 97.7% of them were delivered within three days, postal officials said. The three-day return rate was similar to 2020 but slightly lower than the rate during the 2022 mid-term elections.

There were some notable problems even with the overall strong performance.

Election offices in California, Montana, Louisiana, New Mexico and elsewhere reported receiving completed ballots in the mail that should have gone to other states. The California Secretary of State’s office, for example, said about 150 mail ballots from Oregon voters were misdirected to California before being sent back. The Postal Service report did not address those issues.

State election officials warned ahead of the election that problems with the nation’s mail delivery system threatened to disenfranchise voters after problems surfaced during the primary season. At the time, some mailed ballots were postmarked on time but received too late to be counted and some properly addressed ballots were returned as undeliverable.

The criticisms came as the Postal Service was considering an overhaul of its operations, including opening large mail processing hubs, but some of those changes were paused to ensure they didn’t interfere with this year's election. The Postal Service said it also implemented several “extraordinary measures” to speed the processing of ballots in the weeks just ahead of the Nov. 5 final day of voting.

Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, and New Mexico Election Director Mandy Vigil, president of the National Association of State Election Directors, said they look forward to working with Postal Service officials to improve performance for future elections.

But Vigil expressed concerned about long-term issues, especially staff training and processing facility operations.

“We look forward to working with USPS in the coming year to improve reliability of election mail for elections in 2025 and 2026 when extraordinary measures are not in place,” she said in a statement.

Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union, said postal workers delivered just as they did during the pandemic in 2020.

“And once again the USPS created a high standard to guarantee ballots were delivered both timely and securely, including quickly addressing the few problems when they arose,” he said.