USPS urges voters to mail ballots one week early

The U.S. Postal Service is advising voters to mail their ballots at least one week before they need to be received by election officials.

The USPS also that “extraordinary measures” will begin Saturday at postal facilities throughout the country to make sure ballots are quickly processed and transported.

“The Postal Service is confident and ready to deliver a successful Election Mail season,” Postmaster General David Steiner said in a statement Tuesday. He added that the agency’s goal is to instill “confidence in all Americans that their Election Mail will be handled securely — and delivered reliably.”

The advisory comes about two months after the USPS released a rule requiring states to collect basic voter information, such as a person’s name and home address, and enter it into a federal ballot mail portal before it could be accepted by the mail service.

The rule followed an executive order President Donald Trump signed in March, titled “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections,” which directed the USPS to only send mail-in ballots to an approved list of voters.

After lawsuits challenged the USPS rule, the Supreme Court said last month that the Postal Service could not withhold mail ballots from voters through the Nov. 3 midterm election.

On Tuesday, the Postal Service said it “is not implementing or enforcing the Ballot Mail for Federal Elections rule for the 2026 General Election.”

“Our processes and procedures for this year will be consistent with previous election cycles,” USPS Director of Election and Government Mail Services Adrienne Marshall said in a statement.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, eight states allow all of their elections to be conducted entirely by mail, most of them led by Democrats, including California, Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.

In 37 states and Washington, D.C., voters can request and vote with a mail ballot without needing to give an eligible reason, according to the Center for Election Innovation & Research. 

According to the MIT Election Lab, 29% of voters used mail ballots in the 2024 election.

On Tuesday, the Postal Service said its network “is currently operating without any major reported disruptions, and service performance across the nation is strong.”

The agency described its ballot mail delivery performance through Oct. 9 as “high,” with 97.98% of ballot mail delivered on time.

The extraordinary measures that will begin Saturday include extra deliveries and collections; special pickups; specialized sort plans at processing facilities to expedite delivery to boards of election; and localized handling and transportation of ballots — all of which are consistent with Postal Service operations in past elections, the agency said.

The extra measures will continue through the last day in each state that boards of election accept completed mail-in ballots, USPS said.

The agency said it has not changed its practices of postmarking — the official mark the USPS applies to a piece of mail that shows it had custody of the item on that specific date. It said adjustments to the way it operates transportation can result in some pieces of mail not arriving at the processing facilities that apply the postmark the same day they are collected by a mail carrier, dropped at a retail location or placed in a collection box.

“Voters can ensure that their completed ballot-return envelope receives a postmark, and that the date on the postmark aligns with the date of mailing, by bringing the ballot to a Postal Service retail location and requesting a manual postmark at the retail counter when dropping it off,” the Postal Service said, noting that the manual postmark is free.

Postmarks are the main evidence an election official uses to verify the date a ballot is cast, and can lead to a ballot not being counted if the postmark is missing or illegible, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

A USPS post-election analysis for the 2024 general election found the agency had delivered 99.6% of ballots from voters to election officials within three days.