The head of the U.S. Postal Service was informed by state and local election officials that the mail delivery system could disenfranchise Americans in the upcoming election. Postal Service has not fixed its persistent shortcomings.

The officials stated in an alarming note that during the past year and the recently concluded primary season, ballots that had been postmarked correctly were still received at local election offices several days after the deadline for counting. The officials also reported that they were receiving properly addressed mail for election purposes that was returned as undeliverable. This could cause voters to be automatically placed in an inactive state without their fault, and create chaos if those voters showed up to vote.

Officials also stated that outreach efforts to resolve issues with the Postal Service had failed. The widespread nature of these problems, they said, made it clear that this was “not a one-off mistake or a specific facility problem.” It shows a widespread lack of understanding of USPS policies and their enforcement among employees.

Two groups representing top election administrators from all 50 states wrote to U.S. postmaster general Louis DeJoy. DeJoy was told that “we haven’t seen any improvement or concerted effort to remedy our concerns.”

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They added, “We urge you to take immediate corrective actions to address the ongoing issues with USPS’s election mail service.” Failure to do so could limit voter participation and undermine trust in the electoral process.

DeJoy reiterated on Wednesday that the Postal Service is well-positioned to deliver election mail quickly despite the fact that they are in the middle of a modernization project that has led to some delivery issues. Officials said that mail is delivered on average in 2.7 working days. However, the Postal Service still urges voters to not procrastinate.

“We are ready to deliver. “We were successful in 2020 in delivering an historic volume of mail-in ballots. We did so in 2022 and we will again do it in November 2024,” Adrienne Marsh, director of Election Mail and Government Services said in a press release.

The National Association of Secretaries of State, and the National Association of State Election Directors said that local election officials in “nearly every state” receive timely-marked ballots beyond the USPS standard of three to five working days for first class mail.

The letter was sent less than two weeks ago, after DeJoy stated in an interview that USPS would be ready to deal with the expected flood of mail-in ballots for this November’s Presidential Election. Former President Donald Trump has continued to spread doubt about U.S. election results by falsely claiming to have won in 2020.

In the midst of the pandemic that year, officials at the election reported mailing just over 69 millions ballots, an increase of a significant amount from four years before.

Mail voting is a popular method of voting, and many people have become accustomed to it. Both Democrats and Republicans are pushing supporters to vote in advance, either by mail or in person to “bank” votes before Election Day.

This letter was sent to absentee ballot holders in Alabama on the same day that the first mail-in ballots for this year’s election were being mailed.

Last month, officials from the Postal Service told reporters that in 2020, almost 98% (or ballots) were returned within three days to election officials, while in 2022 this figure rose to nearly 99%. DeJoy stated that he would love to get closer to 100 percent this election cycle, and that the Postal Service has improved its ability to handle ballots since four years ago.

Officials in rural areas have been criticizing the Postal Service’s consolidation of mail-processing centres to reduce costs and losses.

The list included the names of the presidents of both the groups representing local election officials and the incoming presidents.

Election officials warned that any undeliverable election mail sent back to an office could trigger the federal law’s process for maintaining accurate voter lists. The letter stated that a voter may be placed in an “inactive” state and required to confirm their address in order to participate in the elections.

Scott Schwab of Kansas, who is the former president of the National Association of Secretaries of State and the Secretary of State of Kansas, wrote a letter to DeJoy in the last few days. DeJoy said that nearly 1,000 ballots for the state’s primary election on August 6 could not be counted due to their late arrival or lack of postmarks. And more continue coming in.

Schwab, a social media user on X, posted in late August that “the Pony Express was more efficient than it is now.”

Schwab, along with other Kansas election officials, have also said that some ballots arrive at the polls on time but are not postmarked. This prevents them from being counted according to Kansas law. Schwab also told DeJoy that local postal clerks told election officials they couldn’t add a postmark later, even if the Postal Service had handled the ballot before the deadline.

Kansas will count votes if they are received within three days of the election date. The Republican-controlled Legislature created that grace period in 2017 over concerns that mail delivery had slowed after the Postal Service shut down seven mail-processing centers in the state. The majority of state mail was then handled by larger centers located in Denver, Amarillo (Texas), and Kansas City (Missouri).

Schwab, who has sided with Republicans who had suggested that these boxes could be a source of fraud without any evidence, has endorsed the use of ballot dropboxes for voters to vote in advance. Schwab has said for years that the boxes are safer than U.S. Mail.

In a message on X, he told voters to “keep your ballot away from the federal government” after the primary in August.

Election officials wrote a letter on Wednesday stating that colleagues in the U.S. reported that Postal Service employees, including managers and mail carriers, were uninformed of the service’s policies regarding handling election-related mailing, gave them inconsistent guidance, and misdelivered ballots.

The officials wrote that “no amount of proactive communications election officials could do would be able to make up for USPS’s inability meet their own service timelines.” “State election officials and local officials need to work with a partner who is committed, like USPS.”