Postal Service reassures on mail ballots, says all centers operating in
regions hit by hurricanes
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[October 24, 2024]
By JOHN HANNA
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The U.S. Postal Service has reopened all of its mail
processing centers in areas of Florida and North Carolina hit by recent
hurricanes, a top official said Wednesday in a briefing meant to
reassure voters and election officials that the agency is ready to
handle mail ballots.
The Postal Service held the virtual meeting less than two weeks before
the Nov. 5 election and six weeks after state and local election
officials warned that problems with mail service threatened to
disenfranchise voters. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy later responded
that the Postal Service makes "heroic efforts” to get even ballots
mailed late to election offices on time.
Even after Hurricane Helene in late September and Hurricane Milton this
month, 99.9% of the nation's election-related mail was delivered within
seven days, the Postal Service reported Wednesday. It said 99.7% of the
election-related mail was delivered within three days for the last
presidential election in 2020.
“We have the capacity to handle a high volume of election mail in the
final weeks of the election,” said Steven Monteith, a Postal Service
executive vice president and its chief marketing officer.
Monteith said all the processing centers in North Carolina were back in
operation as of Tuesday, as were all of Florida's centers. He said mail
can be delivered to all but 4,600 addresses in North Carolina and about
600 in Florida.
It's not clear how many voters in the hardest-hit areas will return
their ballots by mail. Early in-person voting has gotten off to a strong
start in North Carolina, where election officials have taken a number of
steps to make voting as accessible as possible for voters affected by
the storms. In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis has extended early voting to
Election Day for certain counties and modified deadlines for election
supervisors to send out mail ballots.
As of Tuesday, the Postal Service had moved retail sites in eight
communities and brought mobile units into another 13 in western North
Carolina around Asheville and Charlotte. It moved 10 retail sites in the
Tampa-St. Petersburg metropolitan area and another three in and around
Fort Myers.
Monteith said a “full recovery” of mail service from the hurricanes “may
stretch forward for some time,” but that people still can pick up mail
at post offices or mobile units. He said mail that had been undelivered
because of the hurricanes is being moved to them.
“The nation’s postal network is operating effectively without any major
reported disruptions,” Monteith said.
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People wait in line at the polling place at Black Mountain Library
during the first day of early in-person voting, on Oct. 17, 2024, in
Black Mountain, N.C. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
During a separate Monday briefing, Minnesota Secretary of State
Steve Simon, a Democrat, said voters can take some comfort in the
fact that election officials are not asking the Postal Service “to
be on high, high alert forever and ever."
“We’re asking them for the next 15 days to be on the top of their
game,” said Simon, the president of the National Association of
Secretaries of State.
In September, NASS and the National Association of State Election
Directors sent DeJoy a letter saying that problems with mail
delivery hadn't been adequately addressed.
But earlier this month, one vocal critic, Kansas Secretary of State
Scott Schwab, a Republican, said a phone call with DeJoy reassured
him that the Postal Service would address problems in his state.
Schwab's office reported that at least 697 ballots from the state's
August primary election arrived at election offices too late to be
counted, and at least another 78 did not have the required postmark.
Of those 775 ballots, 79% were from three populous counties, Johnson
and Wyandotte counties in the Kansas City area and Douglas County in
northeastern Kansas, home to the main University of Kansas campus.
Utah’s Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, a Republican who oversees
elections in her state, said the state has experienced some problems
with mail ballots being routed through Las Vegas and not being
postmarked on time. But she said postal workers “understand the
urgency and the importance” of on-time delivery.
“Things will go wrong," she said. "But every little thing just feeds
that conspiracy monster, right? And it’s so not helpful.”
Postal Service officials are advising voters to mail their ballots
at least seven days in advance.
“What we’ve been trying to do, in addition to working with the
Postal Service, is to help voters understand that they’re
responsible ultimately for their own ballots,” Henderson said.
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Associated Press writer Christina A. Cassidy contributed from
Atlanta.
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