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ELECTION 2024 | USPS U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy assured state election officials in a letter released Monday that he'll work with them to handle their warnings of problems with election mail delivery during the primary season, while insisting that the Postal Service will be ready for the flood of mail-in ballots ahead of the November election.
The Postal Service dealt with most concerns raised by election officials, he said, after they warned that properly addressed election mail was returned — a problem that can cause voters to be automatically placed on inactive status — and that mail-in ballots were postmarked on time but arrived after election deadlines. DeJoy said that training is being beefed up for postal employees and that the Postal Service is in constant contact with election officials and will work them to address quality problems that caused incorrect deliveries or mail to be returned to sender. People are also reading.
.. The concerns were raised by the National Association of Secretaries of State and the National Association of State Election Directors, even as former President Donald Trump continues to falsely claim he won in 2020 and seized upon the mail delivery troubles to sow doubts about the upcoming election.
He repeated his claim Sunday on social media that the Postal Service is not up to the task. In 2020, amid the coronavirus pandemic, election officials reported sending just over 69 million ballots in the mail, a substantial increase from four years earlier. While the numbers this year may be smaller, many voters embraced mail voting and came to rely on it.
Both Democrats and Republicans launched efforts to push supporters to vote early, either in person or by mail to "bank" their votes before Election Day on Nov. 5. The first batch of mail ballots were sent last week to absentee voters in Alabama.
On Monday, Steve Simon, president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, stood by his assessment that the Postal Service was slow to respond to concerns. He said localized problems can be easily addressed but that "larger issues still remain." "If the nation's election officials felt these issues had been properly addressed with USPS staff over the last year, then there would have been no need" for the election groups to air their concerns last week, he said.
Mandy Vigil, president of the National Association of State Election Directors, agreed "that the issues we've raised have not been resolved adequately going into the November election." Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox!.
