News Flash

I have expressed concerns about the reliability of mail service in recent years. A concern of many people: whether absentee ballots will arrive at the Board of Elections when sent by voters to the Board of Elections. Just because you send in an absentee ballot doesn’t mean the ballot will count.  Thousands of mail in ballots were rejected for tardiness or for other reasons.

I followed up my concerns by reaching out to the Postal Service leadership in Washington DC and had the opportunity to speak last week with Justin Glass, director of 2020 Election Mail for the US Postal Service.  The  response from Washington can be found below as to what the Postal Service is doing to help make sure your vote counts.

I continue to believe that the Board of Elections should develop a system, prior to the November elections, enabling voters to confirm that their ballot was received by the Board of Elections- if mailed out in a timely manner. This would provide voters with the reassurance that their vote will count. And, if for whatever reason a ballot didn’t arrive on time the voter would have the chance to vote in person.

Another problem: Thousands of ballots were not counted because of a lack of a postmark if the ballot arrived at the Board of Elections late. If  a clerk forgot to postmark a ballot the ballot won’t count.  IN a district in Manhattan 19% of the ballots were invalidated.  Some ballots aren’t counted because of a failure of the voters to have signed and dated the ballots.  There is an interesting article in THE INTERCEPT (July 16th) indicating that New York could throw out one in five mail in ballots in one district. I think the Board of Elections should do a better job of educating voters what they need to do to make sure that their ballot does count. And to publicize mistakes many voters make when sending out their ballots.

Providing voters with the opportunity to vote by mail is very important -especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Between now and November public officials must work harder to make sure that in November every vote counts. 

PAUL FEINER
Greenburgh Town Supervisor

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Hi Paul,

 

It was great talking with you the other day. You had asked in our conversation if I could send you some of the tasks we are undertaking to help educate and inform jurisdictions ahead of the elections. First, I would like to state that we are in no way advocating for voting by mail. We are only educating and informing officials if they choose to utilize the mail in conducting elections.

 

-          We are conducting a comprehensive outreach to State and Local Boards of Election to inform them about postal delivery standards, mail piece design, tracking technologies, postage payment methods, and local logistics.

-          We are reaching out to mailers, presorters, printers to discuss similar topics as well, so they are informed about what we are telling their customers

-          We have distributed Election Mail guides to 11,500 elections officials across the country

-          We have distributed a guidance letter and an Election Mail Users’ Guide to 11,600 election and party officials

-          We will be updating Election Mail information on the usps.com website

-          We are training and communicating with all 630,000 employees of USPS on proper handling of Election Mail, including ballots

 

As we move forward, we will continue to touch base with elections officials.

 

Thank you again for reaching out!

 

Justin Glass, director

2020 Election Mail, United States Postal Service