U.S. election official: Post office ballot delivery plan has 'serious problems'

[New Sancai Compilation First Release] On September 11, 2024, approximately dozens of U.S. state and local election officials expressed serious concerns about the U.S. Postal Service’s ability to deliver millions of ballots for the 2024 presidential election.

The letter from the National Association of State Election Directors and other state and local election officials said election officials "raised serious questions about processing facility operations, lost or delayed election mail, and deficiencies that impact the U.S. Postal Service's ability to deliver election mail in a timely and accurate manner." .

Officials said that despite multiple meetings with USPS election workers, "we have not seen improvements or a concerted effort to address our concerns."

The letter also said that over the past two years, local election officials in nearly every state have received postmarked ballots "well beyond the USPS' claimed first-class delivery standard of three to five business days."

The USPS said it is "committed to the timely and secure delivery of the nation's election mail" and that local and state election officials "have raised any concerns with us and we have addressed them quickly and we will continue to do so."

The USPS said it currently delivers mail in an average of 2.7 days, but still "recommends that as a common-sense measure, voters mail in their completed ballots before Election Day and at least one week before their state's deadline."

The USPS Office of the Inspector General said that in the November 2020 presidential election, 46% of votes cast were cast by mail, compared with 21% in the 2016 election.

The USPS implemented "extraordinary measures" to speed up the delivery of ballots in the two weeks before the election, including extra pickups, extra deliveries and special sorting plans for processing equipment.

The USPS said that in the 2020 election, 99.89% of ballots were delivered to election officials within seven days. Postal voting is scheduled to begin in mid-September.

A July report from the Office of the Inspector General found that some operational changes at the USPS General Administration "created the risk that individual ballots will not be counted" and made recommendations to improve preparations for the timely processing and delivery of ballots.

In December 2021, the USPS General Administration and the NAACP reached a settlement resolving 2020 election mail lawsuits, which the Department of Justice said will ensure priority delivery of ballots in future elections.

(Compiled by: Wang Jimin)

(Editor: Jiang Qiming)

(Source of the article: Compiled and published by New Sancai)