Current:Home > StocksState election directors fear the Postal Service can’t handle expected crush of mail-in ballots -MoneyTrend
State election directors fear the Postal Service can’t handle expected crush of mail-in ballots
View
Date:2025-04-18 08:22:45
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — State election directors from across the country voiced serious concerns to a top U.S. Postal Service official Tuesday that the system won’t be able to handle an expected crush of mail-in ballots in the November election.
Steven Carter, manager of election and government programs for the postal service, attempted to reassure the directors at a meeting in Minneapolis that the system’s Office of Inspector General will publish an election mail report next week containing “encouraging” performance numbers for this year so far.
“The data that that we’re seeing showing improvements in the right direction,” Carter told a conference of the National Association of State Election Directors. “And I think the OIG report is especially complimentary of how we’re handling the election now.”
But state election directors stressed to Carter that they’re still worried that too many ballots won’t be delivered in time to be counted in November. They based their fears on past problems and a disruptive consolidation of postal facilities across the country that Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has put on hold until after the elections.
Monica Evans, executive director of the District of Columbia Board of Elections, recounted how she never received her mail ballot for her own June primary. She ended up voting in person.
“We had, at last count, over 80 ballots that were timely mailed as early as May for our June 4 primary election,” Evans said, noting that her office could have accepted them as late as June 14, but they still arrived too late. “We followed up and we just kept getting, ‘We don’t know what happened. We don’t know what happened.’”
While former President Donald Trump has complained without foundation that fraudulent mailed ballots cost him a second term in 2020, mail-in voting has become a key component of each party’s strategy to maximize the turnout of their voters in 2024. Now Republicans, sometimes including Trump, see it as necessary for an election that is likely to be decided by razor-thin margins in a handful of swing states. Republicans once were at least as likely as Democrats to vote by mail, but Trump changed the dynamics in 2020 when he began to argue against it months before voting began.
Bryan Caskey, the elections director for Kansas who’s also the association’s incoming president, asked Carter to consider a hypothetical jurisdiction that has a 95% on-time rate for mail deliveries, which he said is better than what almost all states are getting.
What to know about the 2024 Election
- Read the latest: Follow AP’s live coverage of this year’s election.
- We want to hear from you: Lots of people wanted different choices in 2024. Does Harris being atop the Democratic ticket change your thinking?
- Democracy: American democracy has overcome big stress tests since 2020. More challenges lie ahead in 2024.
- AP’s Role: The Associated Press is the most trusted source of information on election night, with a history of accuracy dating to 1848. Learn more.
- Stay informed. Keep your pulse on the news with breaking news email alerts. Sign up here.
“That still means that in the state that sends out 100,000 ballots, that’s 5,000 pissed-off, angry voters that are mad about the mail service,” Caskey said, adding, “Actual elections are being determined by these delays, and I just want to make sure that you’re hearing why we’re so upset.”
“It’s totally understandable,” Carter said. “The frustration is understandable.”
The association’s current president, Mandy Vigil, the elections director for New Mexico, said in an interview afterward that she appreciated that the service was at least willing to engage with the state officials, but that she’s concerned that there isn’t enough time before the general election.
“I think that we are at a place where we really need them to pay attention,” Vigil said. “You know, we’ve been voicing our concerns since last November. But we just aren’t seeing the changes as we’re working through our primary elections. And when it comes to November, like, we need to see a difference.”
Nineteen senators wrote to DeJoy last month asking the postmaster general about the service’s policies and plans to prepare for the 2024 election cycle. They pointed out how the first regional consolidation, in Virginia last year, led to delivery delays that led some local election officials there to direct residents to bypass the mail and place their primary election ballots in designated drop boxes. They noted that Virginia’s on-time delivery rate fell below 72% for fiscal 2024, or over 15% below the national average.
Other consolidations have been blamed for degraded service in Oregon, Virginia, Texas and Missouri. The consolidation has also created concern among lawmakers in Utah, where state law requires that ballots be mailed from within Utah, but the postal service now processes mail from some counties in Nevada after moving some operations from Provo to Las Vegas. The entire Minnesota and North Dakota congressional delegations wrote to DeLoy last month after an inspector general’s audit documented nearly 131,000 missing or delayed pieces of mail at six post offices over the course of just two days.
DeJoy paused the cost-cutting consolidations until January 2025 in the wake of bipartisan criticism, but lawmakers want a commitment that the resumption won’t lead to further delivery delays.
veryGood! (392)
Related
- Don't let hackers fool you with a 'scam
- Florida ocean temperatures peak to almost 100 degrees amid heatwave: You really can't cool off
- Twitter will limit uses of SMS 2-factor authentication. What does this mean for users?
- Lisa Marie Presley died of small bowel obstruction, medical examiner says
- Meta releases AI model to enhance Metaverse experience
- The EPA Calls an Old Creosote Works in Pensacola an Uncontrolled Threat to Human Health. Why Is There No Money to Clean it Up?
- Inside Clean Energy: A Steel Giant Joins a Growing List of Companies Aiming for Net-Zero by 2050
- For the First Time, Nations Band Together in a Move Toward Ending Plastics Pollution
- 'We're reborn!' Gazans express joy at returning home to north
- Air India orders a record 470 Boeing and Airbus aircrafts
Ranking
- The city of Chicago is ordered to pay nearly $80M for a police chase that killed a 10
- Conservative Justices Express Some Support for Limiting Biden’s Ability to Curtail Greenhouse Gas Emissions
- What Germany Can Teach the US About Quitting Coal
- What Germany Can Teach the US About Quitting Coal
- Juan Soto to be introduced by Mets at Citi Field after striking record $765 million, 15
- Google shares drop $100 billion after its new AI chatbot makes a mistake
- Donald Trump’s Parting Gift to the People of St. Croix: The Reopening of One of America’s Largest Oil Refineries
- Coal Phase-Down Has Lowered, Not Eliminated Health Risks From Building Energy, Study Says
Recommendation
Nearly half of US teens are online ‘constantly,’ Pew report finds
Indian authorities accuse the BBC of tax evasion after raiding their offices
DeSantis' campaign is brutally honest about trailing Trump in presidential race, donors say
Inflation eased again in January – but there's a cautionary sign
Tom Holland's New Venture Revealed
Amazon Shoppers Love This Very Cute & Comfortable Ruffled Top for the Summer
How Biden's latest student loan forgiveness differs from debt relief blocked by Supreme Court
The Climate Solution Actually Adding Millions of Tons of CO2 Into the Atmosphere