More mail ballots are arriving late this cycle, and they’re getting tossed

The rate at which mail votes have been rejected for arriving late has ticked up in primaries this year and general elections last year in roughly a dozen states, prompting election officials to worry that the U.S. Postal Service is ill-equipped to deliver ballots in the fall midterms.

The states studied by the New York Times include some of the most critical battleground House and Senate seats where control of Congress will be determined, as well as key races for governor and secretary of state. The Times obtained data from California, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Nebraska, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Washington.

In Wisconsin, which hosts an open race for governor, a competitive House election plus contests for both chambers of the state legislature, lateness accounted for about 5,000 rejected mail ballots in the spring primary this year, or 78% of all tossed ballots. During the last spring election, in 2023, the figure was roughly 2,300, or 47% of all tossed votes.

The increase is particularly striking when comparing primaries in 2024 and this year. In Michigan’s primary earlier this month, more than 10,000 mail ballots were rejected for arriving after the state’s deadline of 8 p.m. on Election Day. That is nearly double the number of ballots rejected in 2024. In Washington, the number of late-arriving mail ballots increased from about 16,000 to more than 20,000 in the same period.

The rise in rejected ballots comes at a time of immense upheaval at the Postal Service, where a budget crisis has prompted widespread complaints about delivery delays. The increase also comes as President Donald Trump and his allies are trying to transform the 251-year-old agency into a central player in their quest to restrict mail voting and otherwise overhaul the nation’s elections.

Roughly two dozen states sued the government over the president’s executive order governing mail voting, which would require states to hand over voter information and would empower the Postal Service to block mail ballots from being sent or delivered in states that do not comply. The moves have especially alarmed Democrats, who fear the president could use the Postal Service to tip the scales of a midterm election that polls show currently favors their party. Trump has stated publicly that curtailing mail voting is good for Republicans.

A federal judge issued a ruling Thursday blocking the Postal Service from proceeding after concluding that the agency’s plan appeared to overstep its legal mandate and could spark chaos by changing rules fewer than 70 days before an election. The administration is appealing.

Meanwhile, the uptick in rejection rates for mail ballots this year could fuel the partisan battle. The ballots that were tossed because they arrived too late represent a fraction of the overall mail ballot total — the Postal Service typically delivers more than 95% of mail ballots on time. But the agency has curtailed its services in the face of budget shortfalls in recent years, leading to slower mail delivery across the country.

Election officials say the rise in rejections, along with the general sentiment out of Washington, have prompted them to scramble to put safeguards in place to ensure that voters’ ballots are counted.

In Colorado, Jena Griswold, the Democratic secretary of state, has rapidly increased the number of drop boxes across the state — by 78% since 2018 — so voters can return their ballots without concerns of postal delays or interference.

“We did change the law last legislative session,” Griswold said in an interview. “Mail ballots are going out sooner, and drop boxes are going out sooner. That is in direct response to the uncertainty coming from D.C. and Trump’s attacks on our democracy.”

In a statement, the Postal Service countered claims that the agency has become unreliable by noting that more than 95% of mail ballots have arrived on time in recent elections.

“There are any number of factors that may impact the timeliness of a returned ballot,” the statement said. “As such, our consistent message to voters who choose to vote by mail is to mail early.”

Following the 2020 election, when a deluge of voters opted to vote by mail during the coronavirus pandemic, the agency developed new procedures to prioritize on-time delivery for mail ballots. After a court case in 2021, the Postal Service agreed to maintain the new measures for all even-year federal elections through 2028.

William Hensley, a former election mail specialist at the Postal Service who helped establish the new procedures, said the fact that mail ballot delays were more prevalent in odd-year and primary elections suggested that the measures were effective. But he conceded that structural changes within the agency slowing service across the board were also affecting ballots.

As part of a 10-year plan established in 2021 to shore up the Postal Service’s finances through structural changes, the agency set up regional distribution centers to process mail and increased the delivery-time standards for first-class mail, from three days to five.

The Postal Service further slowed down mail in 2024 when it implemented a centralized system that postmarks mail when it reaches regional centers, not when it first enters the mail stream. The delay has particularly affected mail voting, especially in states that rely on postmarks to determine if a ballot is valid.

These cost-cutting changes have so far not made a substantial dent in the agency’s multibillion dollar deficit, but they have slowed the delivery of mail votes. Election officials are starting to notice.

In Wisconsin’s state Supreme Court election in April, several hundred ballots arrived a day late in Dane County, home to Madison, the state capital, according to Scott McDonell, the county clerk.

“That was highly unusual,” he said. “In the past, we would only see a handful.”

In a survey by the Wisconsin Elections Commission, two-thirds of clerks reported observing problems with mail delivery times in that election.

“The worst mail delivery day of the week is Tuesday (unfortunately for elections!) and our office jokingly but sadly refers to it as ‘no mail Tuesday,’” read one submission from a clerk in Waukesha County.

McDonell, who is a Democrat, says he now tells voters to use drop boxes, vote early in person, or mail their ballots at least two weeks before Election Day.

In Washington, a universal mail-voting state, more voters are using drop boxes than trusting the Postal Service with their ballots, said Stuart Holmes, the state’s elections director.

“The Postal Service, these are great people, hardworking people,” Holmes said about the state’s local postal employees. “But their operation has become unreliable.”

In Washington’s primary earlier this year, 75% of rejected mail ballots were tossed because they arrived too late.

Ricky Hatch, a Republican election official in Utah, a state that relies almost exclusively on mail voting, said he had noticed a nationwide increase of election officials encouraging voters to mail their ballots early because of Postal Service slowdowns.

“We’ve definitely morphed over time from going from ‘Hey, get your ballot in before the deadline’ to ‘Mail your ballot at least a week early, if you want to have it counted,’” Hatch said.

Now, he added, the advice is even more cautious: “Better yet, use a drop box.”

This article originally appeared in the New York Times.