Dem
47
GOP
53
While we are on the subject of disenfranchisement, there is more news on that front. Since July 2025, the postmaster general has been David Steiner, the former CEO of Waste Management, a company that does garbage collection. Apparently collecting mail and collecting garbage require similar skills. Or maybe nobody else wanted the job of running an organization that loses $9 billion every year and operates under constraints that make breaking even impossible; for example, driving 10 miles off the main road to some far-flung farm to deliver a postcard for 61¢.
A new change in postal procedures may save a bit of money (but not enough to get the deficit down to $8 billion/yr), but will disenfranchise some voters. It has to do with the humble postmark, that little stamp the USPS puts on all mail to cancel the stamps so they can't be steamed off and used again. The postmark contains a date and that has legal significance. In particular, in some (but not all) states, absentee ballots postmarked before or on Election Day are counted as valid, even if they arrive a few days late.
Up until now, mail put in mailboxes was collected the same day and postmarked the same day. In other words, people who posted their absentee ballots on Election Day got a postmark of Election Day and the ballot was deemed "on time" in those states that accept and count late ballots. That is about to change. Official policy is now that there is no guarantee that mail deposited in a mailbox, or even brought to a post office, will be postmarked that day—or even the next day. It could be later, depending on where the mail was dropped and local procedures. In some cases, mail from a particular area is trucked to a larger facility, possibly hundreds of miles away, and processed and postmarked there.
For letters to your beloved Aunt Fannie in Peoria, it doesn't matter much. She is probably not going to look at the postmark anyway. But for absentee ballots that arrive after Election Day, it matters a great deal. Every one is carefully scrutinized to see what the postmark date is. If it is after Election Day, the ballot will be rejected in all states, even the 14 states that accept late ballots, and even if the ballot was posted on time. At some post offices, it is possible to request a manual postmark on the spot, but only if specifically requested.
Needless to say, given how slow snail mail is these days, waiting until the last minute to vote by mail is a very bad idea, even separate from the postmark issue. If an Oregon voter who happens to be staying in Florida in November mails an absentee ballot back to Oregon on Election Day there is a chance the ballot might take so long to arrive that it won't be counted, even if it is postmarked on Election Day.
Most voters don't follow postal rule changes closely and may think if they have deposited their ballot in a mailbox before 5 p.m. on Election Day, they made it. People with disabilities, people who lack transportation, and people who work multiple jobs are the most likely not to vote in person and who are most likely to be affected by the procedural change.
Some states are even exploiting the slow mail for partisan advantage. In Florida, in 2023 the state passed a new law setting a tight window for third-party voter registration drives. In the past, some civic groups passed out applications for absentee ballots, collected the signed forms, and mailed them in. Now if they arrive outside the allowed window, there is a fine of $2,500 for each application that arrives late. This is intended to discourage voter-registration drives. Organizations that do voter-registration drives have now switched to just handing out the applications and telling people to mail them in themselves. For people in nursing homes or hospitals or who have disabilities, this might be too high a hill to climb. Again: feature, not bug. Republicans are clever. They understand that if every eligible voter could actually vote, they would have a very hard time winning elections outside of deep-red states and districts, so the only way to win is to prevent Democrats from voting. (V)