Amid Concerns, Postmaster General Says USPS Is Ready for Election Season

Letters and packages are loaded onto a U.S. Postal Service truck parked outside a post office in Wheeling, Ill., on Jan. 29, 2024. Nam Y. Huh/AP Photo

Amid questions over timely mail-in ballot delivery, U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has assured state and local election officials that the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is prepared for the November general election.

In a letter to the National Association of State Election Directors and the National Association of Secretaries of State, DeJoy addressed concerns about USPS performance as Election Day approaches.

DeJoy was replying to a Sept. 11 letter he received from the two associations outlining their concerns.

Those concerns included properly addressed election mail being returned—which could automatically cause voters to be designated as inactive and create chaos when they show up at the polls—and mail-in ballots being postmarked on time but arriving days after the deadline to be counted.

“The most common reason that a mailpiece is returned to sender is poor address quality, but we are working to ensure that whatever the cause, we resolve the issue quickly,” DeJoy wrote in the Sept. 13 letter, which was shared publicly on Sept. 16.

In reference to complaints about long delivery times, DeJoy highlighted that mail is currently delivered in an average of 2.7 days, with election mail routinely outperforming regular service. Additionally, he pledged to work with election officials to fix “flawed ballot envelope designs” that could cause delays.

Major Updates

The USPS is also in the middle of updating its processes and networks, and there have been delays in parts of the country where the agency has opened new mega mail-processing hubs, known as Regional Processing and Distribution Centers, including Richmond, Virginia, and Atlanta.

“Let us reiterate, modernization and enhancement plans will not have an impact on Election Mail, and we have committed to limit network changes to avoid any unintended disruption in service for the upcoming election and peak season,” DeJoy wrote.

The USPS also has teams in place to handle election mail flagged as “undeliverable as addressed” and to make sure the mail pieces are not returned to election officials, DeJoy wrote.

“You can rest assured that along with the entire United States Postal Service, I am personally fully committed to effective implementation of our longstanding processes and procedures designed to ensure that all ballot mail is delivered in a timely and secure manner,” he told the two associations.

Both Democrats and Republicans are encouraging supporters to vote early, either in person or by mail. The first batch of mail-in ballots went out on Sept. 11 in Alabama, 55 days before Election Day on Nov. 5.

North Carolina would have been the first state to send out mail-in ballots, but a judge has halted the release after a challenge from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an independent presidential candidate who suspended his campaign to endorse former President Donald Trump and has since been fighting to remove his name from ballots in heavily contested states.