US Postal Service faces ballot delay fears before crucial midterm voting

Washington,UPDATED: Jul 29, 2026 21:30 IST

The US Postal Service has become a key part of the election debate in the United States around six weeks before the first midterm ballots are due to be mailed, with control of Congress at stake. Concerns over whether ballots are reaching election offices on time have grown after tens of thousands arrived too late to be counted in California earlier this year and hundreds were delayed in Wisconsin.

The scrutiny has increased because President Donald Trump is pushing for greater control over mail balloting through an executive order issued in March, while some state election officials are telling voters to avoid posting ballots and instead deliver them by hand. The Postal Service said it remains "committed to fulfilling our role in the electoral process" and provides "a secure, efficient, and effective way for citizens to participate when policymakers decide to use mail as part of their elections".

The order seeks to create a national voter list to help decide who can receive a mail ballot. It has led to several lawsuits and court orders, and the case is now before the US Supreme Court after the administration asked the justices to let it enforce the restrictions. Democratic officials in nearly two dozen states filed a federal lawsuit in Massachusetts, where a judge blocked the order last month and an appeals court upheld that ruling. In a separate case, the appeals court for the District of Columbia on Tuesday refused to block the order, calling the challenge premature.

Trump has for years made false claims about voter fraud while trying to explain his 2020 loss to Democrat Joe Biden, and he has repeatedly targeted voting by mail even though he has used it himself. During a recent stop in Michigan, he called mail balloting "inherently corrupt" and said, "Hopefully there will be no mail-in ballots." A 2025 Brookings report identified about four cases of fraud for every 10 million mail ballots cast. Even so, the method remains widely used across both major parties. Federal data showed that nearly 30 per cent of US voters cast their ballots by mail in 2024. In Michigan, which has closely fought US House and Senate races, the state said it has sent out more than 2 million absentee ballots for the Aug. 4 primary. Jonathan Smith, president of the 200,000-member American Postal Workers Union, said, "We want to keep vote by mail. We want to protect it. We want to expand it. Why? Because it works."

In June, the Postal Service proposed a rule in line with Trump's order that would create the national list using databases held by other federal agencies, with only those on the list eligible to receive mail ballots. Democratic senators and governors have urged the Postal Service to drop the effort. Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin said, "Donald Trump has shown he'll stop at nothing to meddle in our upcoming elections. At best, this new push will exacerbate already severe delays for mail-in voters and at worst, it will stop eligible Americans from casting their ballots." In a letter to Democratic senators earlier this month, Postal Service leaders said they were following court rulings that had halted the order. But Smith told AP on Tuesday that union members in the USPS information technology team were working "behind the scenes" on a planned online system for the list. The Postal Service declined to respond to Smith's comments and said it could not discuss whether such work was continuing because of the litigation. Smith said it should not be postal workers' responsibility "to decide who can vote and who can't vote".

The agency is also facing criticism over changes to the way it handles mail. Under financial pressure for years, the Postal Service has been consolidating processing into fewer regional centres. A recent Brookings report said mail now travels an average of 139 miles to reach a centre and sometimes as much as 500 miles. In January, a group of mostly Democratic senators raised concerns about a decision to stop twice-daily dispatches from local post offices to regional centres, meaning mail that arrives after the only daily dispatch is sent the next day.

California officials said this change contributed to more than 148,000 ballots being rejected in the state's June primary, with 63 per cent arriving too late despite a seven-day grace period. They said some ballots may have been postmarked at processing centres a day after voters dropped them at a post office, which could have made them invalid. Wisconsin officials also said hundreds of ballots from an election in April arrived late. The Postal Service said postmarks are generally being applied with automated equipment at processing centres "in the same manner and to the same extent as before". It added that voters who want to make sure their ballot envelope gets a timely postmark can get one applied free by a postal worker. A report by the USPS Office of Inspector General on the 2024 election said the agency handled more than 59 million pieces of ballot mail between Sept. 1 and Nov. 15 that year, and that 97.3 per cent arrived on time.

Some state election officials are now openly advising voters to keep ballots out of the mail. Michigan's secretary of state office is urging voters to hand-deliver ballots to a local clerk's office or a drop box. Deputy Secretary of State Aghogho Edevbie said, "We've seen these issues over a number of election cycles now - they're always concerning, and that's why we've put out that guidance." The Postal Service said its Michigan centres are not facing processing delays. In Kansas, delays in the state's 2024 primary prompted Secretary of State Scott Schwab, a Republican, to post on X: "The Pony Express is more efficient at this point." Asked for his view now, spokesperson Whitney Tempel said Schwab still believes "keeping your ballot out of the hands of the federal government is best". Jamie Shew, the Democrat who oversees elections in Douglas County, said, "I think voters are used to, you can drop it off on Friday and we're going to receive it by Election Day. That's just not the reality." California has set aside USD 10 million in its budget for social media and other campaigns to discourage last-minute ballot mailings.

As the midterm election nears, the Postal Service is under pressure from both the legal fight over Trump's order and concerns about delivery times. While the agency says its advice has not changed and voters should mail ballots at least a week before their state's deadline, several election officials are telling voters not to take that chance and to deliver ballots in person instead.

With PTI Inputs

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