Since the 2020 Covid election, the USPS has effectively become the largest “precinct” in our elections with little citizen observation. But recent incidents, reports from the USPS Office of the Inspector General, and independent investigations have revealed that the USPS may not be prepared to handle the volume of vote-by-mail ballots this November.
As recently reported in The Federalist, the USPS Election Mail system apparently created a major problem in the June primary election in Utah. According to local election officials, hundreds of ballots that were purportedly mailed before the vote-by-mail cut-off were not processed by USPS in time to meet the “postmark” deadline, making those ballots ineligible to be counted in the election.
This incident in Utah is a symptom of a nationwide problem with the USPS Election Mail system.
In 2021, the USPS announced its “Delivering for America” program, a “ten-year plan” that aims to restructure the flow of mail “to achieve financial sustainability and service excellence.” After three years, the program has reportedly reduced costs. However, in many areas where the restructuring was implemented, there seem to have been some dramatic decreases in service. Two elements of the program are likely contributing to this decline.
Regional Processing Centers
The first element is that the USPS is in the process of consolidating its regional mail processing centers. Many of these regions include large sections of multiple neighboring states. (Grassroots activists at Save The Post Office charted known Regional Processing and Distribution centers on a map here.) The Postal
