Postal Service Gives Voters Urgent Deadline to Mail Election Ballots

The United States Postal Service (USPS) has urged Americans planning to vote by mail in the November 5 election to send their ballots no later than Tuesday, October 29.

The nationwide advisory released Monday comes amid final preparations for what is expected to be another significant test of the nation’s mail-in voting infrastructure and following several concerning incidents involving ballot security across multiple states.

Early Monday morning, authorities launched investigations after ballot drop boxes were set ablaze in Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington, destroying hundreds of ballots. The Vancouver fire occurred at Fisher’s Landing Transit Center, while Portland officials reported an incendiary device was used in a separate ballot box attack.

These incidents, along with a recent ballot-destroying fire at a Phoenix postal station, highlight growing security concerns for mail-in voting.

According to the USPS release, postal officials expect their 2024 election mail performance to match or surpass their 2020 benchmarks when the agency successfully handled an unprecedented surge in mail-in ballots during the height of the pandemic.

Newsweek contacted USPS’ press contact Mart Johnson via email on Monday for comment.

The Postal Service’s current performance data paints an encouraging picture. In the first three weeks of October, 99.9 percent of all election-related mail—including both outbound ballots to voters and completed ballots returning to election officials—reached their destinations within seven days.

More impressively, inbound ballots from voters to election officials are currently being delivered in an average of just one day, while outbound ballots to voters are taking approximately two days, according to the release.

These numbers align closely with the agency’s stellar performance during the 2020 general election, when 99.89 percent of voter-mailed ballots reached election officials within a week. During that election cycle, 97.9 percent of ballots arrived within three days, and 99.7 percent made it to their destination within five days.

The average delivery time for ballots from election officials to voters was 2.1 days, while return ballots from voters averaged just 1.6 days.

To maintain these high standards, the Postal Service initiated what it calls “extraordinary measures” on October 21. This enhanced protocol will remain active through Election Day and continue until each state’s final deadline for accepting mail-in ballots.

The…