Election official explains concerns over USPS ability to handle mail-in voting

Election officials from across the country say the U.S. postmaster general has not addressed persistent mail delivery delays and has not adequately prepared for the election. They say that could cause ballots to miss deadlines, lead to fewer people voting and undermine trust in the process. Geoff Bennett discussed more with Mandy Vigil of the National Association of State Election Directors.

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Geoff Bennett: In a new letter, election officials from across the country say the U.S. postmaster general has not addressed persistent mail delivery delays and has not adequately prepared for the general election.

And that, they say, could cause ballots to miss election deadlines, lead to fewer people voting, and undermine trust in the voting process. Mail-in voting has already started in Alabama, and at least 36 states allow all of their residents to vote by mail.

I spoke earlier today with Mandy Vigil. She’s elections director for the state of New Mexico and president of the National Association of State Election Directors, one of the groups that issued the letter. And I asked about what election officials see as the lack of understanding and enforcement of Postal Service policies for handling election mail.

Mandy Vigil, New Mexico State Elections Director: The USPS has a lot of different election mail policies. Those policies are in place for good reason. And the unfortunate reality is that we’re seeing an inconsistent application of those policies, which could make a difference in the ability to count a ballot or not.

So, as an example, there’s a requirement to postmark ballots. We are hearing of instances across states where that is not occurring. And depending on state law, that may prohibit an eligible ballot from otherwise being counted.

Geoff Bennett: We know that critical battleground states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, Georgia, they all accept mail-in ballots. All of these states will likely be decided by extremely thin margins.

Do you think that these delivery delays could swing the outcome of the election in any one of these states?

Mandy Vigil: I think that’s something that we are concerned about. I mean, to your point, this is an incredibly historic election. Voters do have many ways in which they can participate, and that might vary depending on what state they’re in.

But many states, including one like ours in New Mexico, offer an opportunity for voters to participate by mail. And so voters should have that opportunity without concern that something isn’t going to get there in time to be counted. So we do see contests that when we’re looking at a local level could be determined by small margins.

We see changes when it’s 100 to 200 ballots. I have even seen contests where there’s a tie in our state when we get down to the local level. So every ballot is something that we want to feel confident in being able to account for and count appropriately.

Geoff Bennett: Well, I reached out to the U.S. Postal Service yesterday to see how they responded to this letter. And they say that they’re aware of your concerns. They say that mail is typically delivered in less than three days across the country. They say they don’t believe there’d be any critical election issues resulting from their handling of ballot mail.

And the director of election mail issued a statement that reads this way. It says: “We are ready to deliver. We were successful in 2020, delivering a historic volume of mail-in ballots, also in 2022, and we will do so again in November 2024.”

Have they done enough to address your concerns?

Mandy Vigil: No.

That’s really the reason that that we felt it was critical to come together as an election community. This is coming from state down to local election administrators. So we see these issues across states, across kind of government levels. And we don’t see the change that makes us feel confident in their ability to really address what’s necessary for election mail.

It’s not about volume. It’s really about reliability and accuracy. So if we look at their busiest time of year, where they’re able to handle holiday Christmas mail, if a Christmas card gets to your friends and family a little bit beyond the deadline, though it might be a little embarrassing, I think that nobody really is really worried about it in the same way when we apply that to a ballot.

So if we are following kind of their standards and expectations of when a voter should receive and then the timeline in which they should return a ballot, but that’s not accurate. We are hearing about ballots coming in weeks, days. That is critical to being able to count them.

Many states, it has to either arrive on election night by 7:00 p.m., like ours here in New Mexico, or they may have a postmark requirement. So either way, the post office is a critical partner in making sure that all of those items are aligned and that the voters can trust that it’s going to get to us timely.

If it doesn’t, that’s really where election officials and voters are the ones left paying the price.

Geoff Bennett: The postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, his history as a Trump supporter, a Trump megadonor, that has raised questions for some about his motives as the Postal Service sees these slowdowns, these delivery delays.

Is there any reason to think that these slowdowns are intentional, as some Trump critics have suggested?

Mandy Vigil: You know, I don’t think that election administrators as a whole see things in a partisan way. We’re not elected officials. We’re election administrators.

So we have seen issues with the post office in the past. I think what we can speak to is the fact that it’s certainly something that has increased over the past 12 months. And we certainly don’t feel like we’re seeing any effort to really make a difference on the pattern across kind of the post office as a whole.

Many states may have positive relationships with their state and local or regional support in the post office. But that’s really just not enough to be able to see kind of the industry adjustments necessary to change this pattern.

Geoff Bennett: Mandy Vigil, president of the National Association of State Election Directors, thanks so much for your time.

Mandy Vigil: Thank you.