1 in 5 voters ready to use mail-in ballots. Is the Postal Service prepared?

Roughly a fifth of voters are expected to vote by mail in the 2024 election, according to recent polls, meaning millions of ballots will be in the hands of postal workers.

Is the U.S. Postal Service prepared to process and deliver that kind of volume in a timely manner? In short, yes, according to officials and election experts.

But they stressed that voters — particularly those living in specific areas — should take certain common sense steps to ensure their ballots are counted.

“The U.S. Postal Service is committed to the secure, timely delivery of the nation’s election mail,” Debra Fetterly, a USPS spokesperson, told McClatchy News. “We are employing robust and proven processes to ensure proper handling and delivery of all election mail, including ballots.”

It’s important to emphasize, experts said, that election mail is just a drop in the bucket in terms of the total mail that the Postal Service processes and delivers.

“The USPS processes a total of 300 million pieces of mail each day,” Charles Stewart, a professor of political science at MIT, who studies elections, told McClatchy News.

“The total number of mail ballots will be something in the neighborhood of 50 million which, of course, will generate a total of 100 million pieces of mail—a volume that will be stretched out over several weeks,” Stewart said. “Therefore, this is not a major surge in volume.”

Kevin Kosar, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, who researches the USPS, agreed.

He told McClatchy News that the total amount of election mail “pales in comparison to what the Postal Service handles during the holiday shopping and greeting card season.”

Further, election mail is considered a class above the rest and prioritized accordingly, Kosar said.

“Extraordinary measures will begin nationwide on Oct. 21, and will include additional collections, extra deliveries, special sort plans on processing equipment, and local handling and transportation of ballots,” Fetterly said.

Additionally, the USPS’s performance in the last presidential election should help assuage any concerns that voters may have, Kosar said.

“Back in 2020, you had a postal workforce that was depleted due to COVID and nonetheless they delivered something like 99% or more of the ballots within the delivery window,” he said.

But, while there aren’t expected to be major problems, there could be small pockets across the country that experience delays, experts said.

“The immediate delays that we’re concerned about are in the ones that are in the states impacted by Hurricane Helene and Milton,” Kim Wyman, a senior fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center, who researches elections, told McClatchy News.

Hurricane damage could have disrupted postal facilities and deliver routes in states like North Carolina and Florida, Wyman, a former secretary of state of Washington, said.

Voters in areas affected by the storms should contact local or state election officials to see if mail-in voting procedures or locations have changed, she said.

Additionally, some recent changes implemented by the USPS could cause delays, experts said.

Over the past few years, the Postal Service has consolidated processing facilities across the country — a modification that has mainly affected rural areas and communities near state lines, Wyman said.

This means that election mail in these areas could be “sent either across the entire state or possibly into another state to be processed … which could impact travel times,” she said.

So, voters in these areas — such as those living in areas impacted by hurricanes — should send in their mail-in ballots as soon as possible, Wyman said.

The bottom line is that voters should trust the USPS to deliver their ballots but should ensure they send them in a timely manner, experts said.

“Remember the postal service is not a teleportation service,” Kosar said.

“Our common-sense voter recommendation remains that domestic voters should mail their completed ballot before Election Day, and at least one week prior to the deadline by which their completed ballot must be received by their local election official,” Wyman said. “All voters should check their state deadlines, links to which are available on our website.”

If voters have not sent in their ballots by one week before Election Day, they should consider placing them in drop boxes or delivering them to election offices themselves, Stewart said.

These drop boxes, which are broadly accessible throughout many states, are secure, and pickups are done by local election officials, Wyman said.