Requiem for the US Postal Service

By Deb Boelkes

It’s a Heartfelt Leader’s responsibility to make tough decisions. Some of the toughest decisions require challenging and sometimes upending the status quo. Sometimes, when long-revered institutions have outlived their useful lives, we must decide to pull the plug.  

Registered voters will soon need to decide by what means they will vote in the upcoming general election. Those who intend to vote by mail must decide whether to trust the United States Postal Service (USPS). It’s certainly not what it used to be.

A few months back I posted a chronology of exasperating experiences I’d had with the deteriorating quality of the United States Postal Service (USPS) (refer to Do You Trust the Postal Service Anymore?). One example highlighted the (lack of) delivery of two heartfelt notecards I had “snail-mailed” to a friend. The situation remained unresolved at the time of that post.  

As a fresher, I had mailed notecard #1 to let my friend know she was in my thoughts and prayers when her husband suddenly became critically ill. I mailed notecard #2, a sympathy card, two weeks later when her husband passed away.

Now, several months later, I can confirm my friend eventually did receive notecard #1, but only after it was returned to me, YET AGAIN—weeks later—with a second “Undeliverable” label affixed to it by the USPS.  When the errant notecard showed up in my own mailbox the second time, I called my friend to apologize and asked if she had ever received my sympathy card. She had not. I ended up driving to her home to hand-deliver the twice-labelled-as-Undeliverable notecard.

Fast forward to now, six months since her husband’s passing. Neither she nor I have seen any signs of notecard #2 since it was first labelled Undeliverable. Heaven only knows where it might be. Perhaps Puerto Rico.

For better or worse, in late June I learned I was not the only one plagued by such scenarios when five members of Congress—whose districts span the area serviced by the USPS Regional Processing and Distribution Center that serves my hometown—jointly signed a letter to The Honorable Louis DeJoy, Postmaster General of the United States Postal Service in Washington, DC. 

The letter opened thusly:

We write you today regarding the unsatisfactory results produced by the United States Postal Service (USPS) Regional Processing and Distribution Center (RPDC) located in Jacksonville, Florida. This center services portions of both Southern Georgia and Northern Florida. Since the beginning of the new year, our offices have been inundated with complaints regarding delivery delays and lost mail. The complaints originate from members of the local newspaper industry to everyday citizens looking to mail a letter or package…

The letter goes on to request answers to ten pointed questions about the challenges and barriers that exist for postal service employees, and operational changes that may have led to the sudden loss of confidence with their service.

While I have not yet learned what, if anything, these members of Congress heard back from The Honorable Louis DeJoy in response to their inquiry, the topic of Problematic Mail Delivery came up last week at the September meeting of our county Supervisor of Elections (SOE) Advisory Council, of which I am a member.

Our SOE shared that their office has received an increasing number of voter complaints about not receiving sample ballots during this election cycle. Thanks to our SOE’s automated system that tracks to whom and to what address, and on what date, every sample ballot and every Vote-By-Mail ballot is mailed out, our SOE was able to confirm in each case that a sample ballot had indeed been mailed to the voter.

I subsequently read an article on APNews.com entitled Election officials warn that widespread problems with the US mail system could disrupt voting. The article highlighted alarming letters sent to the US Postmaster General—from two groups representing the top election administrators in all 50 states—complaining that over the past year vote-by-mail ballots postmarked on time were not delivered to the local election offices until days after the deadline to be counted.

The complaint letters also noted that properly addressed election mail was being returned to the elections offices as Undeliverable. The biggest problem with election mail being returned as Undeliverable is that the targeted recipient voter is then automatically assigned Inactive Voter status through no fault of their own—a status that could potentially create chaos when such voters show up at their polling locations to cast ballots.

The complaint letters also stated that repeated outreach to the USPS to resolve the issues had failed. The widespread nature of the problems made it clear that these were not just one-off mistakes or limited to a specific facility, but instead demonstrated a pervasive lack of understanding and enforcement of USPS policies across the entire system.

After Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab sent his own letter of complaint to the US Postmaster General, Schwab quipped on the social media platform X, “The Pony Express is more efficient at this point.” During a news media interview he advised against mailing ballots.

With the 2024 General Election little more than six weeks away, it’s clear we have such a widespread problem with inept, inefficient mail delivery that it cannot possibly be resolved in time to prevent significant impacts to voters and the integrity of this election.

Regardless of locale, anyone who intends to vote by mail must face the fact that the US Postal Service is highly unreliable. No one should assume their Vote-By-Mail ballot will be received by the deadline to be counted, regardless of when it is mailed.

Luckily, many election offices track and post the status of ballots online.  If you have already mailed in your Vote-by-Mail ballot to your local election office, check online (or by phone) to confirm that your vote-by-ballot has been received. If it hasn’t yet been received within a reasonable timeframe, then vote another way. In most jurisdictions, when more than one ballot is received from a voter, the first ballot received is the only one counted.   

If circumstances leave you no choice but to vote by mail, consider returning your vote-by-mail ballot via another delivery method, such as FedEx or UPS. 

If you do not receive your sample ballot in the mail by October 1st, be sure to contact your county elections official. Arrange to pick up a sample ballot at their office or download the appropriate sample ballot from their website.

If possible, vote in person, either during designated early-voting days or on election day.

And when you vote for President of the United States, carefully consider which candidate will be most likely to take the difficult but necessary corrective actions to resolve the widespread USPS performance issues before the next election cycle.  

Your vote matters. Be proactive. Ensure your vote counts. 

And R.I.P. USPS.

ps: A real-time update - As I was writing this, the post office emailed me indicating that my package was delivered and on my front porch at the front door.  Of course, the package is...nowhere to be found.  MIA.