Voters have expressed concern over the speed of the United States Postal Service, which has seen significant delays in recent months, as the country prepares for the 2024 presidential election.
The voters are largely concerned about the speed of mail-in ballots, and whether they would arrive at their destinations in time to be counted. However, the U.S. Postal Service said it would use “a robust and proven process to ensure proper handling and delivery of all Election Mail, including ballots,” for November.
USPS also apologized for the service interruptions and delays seen in the past six months, which have been attributed to a roof collapse, the transition to new processing equipment, and “executional complications arising from operational transitions.”
“We readily acknowledge and regret that there have been service performance issues in several major metropolitan areas in the past six months,” USPS said in a statement to NBC News. “In each of these site-specific disruptions, we have moved quickly to understand the local issue and stabilize the situation. As a result, service performance is improving or has returned to expected performance in these local communities.”
From October through December of 2023, 87% of first-class, two-day mail arrived on time nationwide, a decrease of 2.5% from the previous year, according to NBC News. For mail that was supposed to take three to five business days, only 70% arrived on time, which was a drastic decrease of 11 percentage points.
The delays come as the postal service is undergoing a major overhaul that will eventually funnel all packages and letters through a joint network of 60 distribution centers. The overhaul is also expected to reduce costs, make the postal service more competitive with other services like Amazon, and improve its efficiency.
The slow downs largely impact metropolitan areas, and have forced hundreds of veterans in Virginia to have their colon cancer screening tests invalidated after the results took months to arrive by mail. In Georgia, one college student had to miss a trip to Ghana because their passport took a month to arrive, despite paying extra for the two-day shipping. And in Texas, one woman had to rent a wedding dress for her own wedding because the one she purchased was stuck at a postal facility.
The delays have even prompted members of Congress to chime in and demand a stop to any additional changes to the postal service.
“The nature of USPS’s network changes has now raised significant concerns including the potential for degraded rural service due to fewer facilities, delayed delivery of election mail that would be processed at out-of-state facilities, and critical health information such as laboratory tests not being processed same-day due to decreased transportation trips,” Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) said in a letter to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy last month.
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State and city officials have encouraged voters to use alternative forms of voting, such as dropping off their ballots in person, or via drop boxes that are placed in major cities. Voters could also cast their ballots early in order to give their ballots more time to arrive.
“I understand that these issues extend beyond mere inconvenience; they represent a fundamental threat to our democracy,” Richmond General Registrar Keith Balmer said in a blog post on Feb. 26.
The Washington Examiner has reached out to the postal service for comment.
