‘Pervasive’ issues with USPS mail delivery could disenfranchise voters, election officials warn: ‘Not one-off mistakes’

State and local election officials nationwide sent a joint letter Wednesday to the United States Postal Service Postmaster General Louis DeJoy stating that the federal government’s mail service had failed to improve its delivery issues before the upcoming November election.

The letter, sent by the National Association of State Election Directors and the National Association of Secretaries of State, raised concerns that the USPS will be unable to manage the approaching flood of mail-in ballots. The presidents of 29 local election official associations also signed the joint correspondence.

'It demonstrates a pervasive lack of understanding and enforcement of USPS policies.'

They warned about “inconsistent training of USPS staff,” “exceptionally long delivery times,” and an “increase in mail returned as undeliverable.”

Election officials in all 50 states “have raised serious questions about processing facility operations, lost or delayed election mail, and front-line training deficiencies impacting USPS’s ability to deliver election mail in a timely and accurate manner,” it read.

The election officials claimed that, over the past year, they “have not seen improvement or concerted efforts to remediate our concerns,” noting that many of those concerns were confirmed in a recent inspector general audit.

They argued that USPS staff is “uninformed” about the mail service’s policies regarding election mail, which has, in some cases, led to “inconsistent guidance” and ultimately “disenfranchised” voters.

“The frequency and widespread distribution of training-related issues, however, make it clear these are not one-off mistakes or a problem with specific facilities,” the letter continued. “Instead, it demonstrates a pervasive lack of understanding and enforcement of USPS policies among its employees.”

According to the letter, election officials “in nearly every state ... are receiving timely postmarked ballots well after Election Day and well outside the three to five business days USPS claims as the First-Class delivery standard.”

“In other cases, ballots sent to election offices are being returned to the voter with the election office address marked as undeliverable,” it added, noting that this issue is also occurring “nationwide.”

Such errors could cause a voter to be moved to the inactive voter registration list, which would require them to take additional action to reverify their participation, the letter noted.

“The increase in undeliverable mail raises two significant issues: (1) the potential disenfranchisement of voters whose ballots are not delivered to them or to their election office, and (2) putting eligible voters on the path to having their voter registration record canceled,” it stated.

In a statement to NBC News, a USPS spokesperson responded to the letter, saying, “We are currently delivering mail in 2.7 days, although we continue to recommend as a common-sense measure that voters should mail their completed ballot before Election Day, and at least one week prior to their state’s deadline.”

“As we have discussed widely with election officials, the Postal Service is in the midst of network modernization,” the spokesperson continued. “Election Mail routinely outperforms our regular service performance due to our long-standing processes and procedures.”

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