The U.S. Postal Service has advised mail-in voters to send their ballots in a week early, according to a Monday statement.
Though deadlines for the return of vote-by-mail ballots vary by state, the Postal Service has urged voters with a deadline of Nov. 5 to send their ballots in by Tuesday, Oct. 29.
“The Postal Service remains fully ready to successfully deliver the nation’s mail-in ballots for voters who choose to use us to vote,” the Postal Service said. “And to be clear, even for return ballots that are entered in our system after Tuesday, we will continue to deploy our ‘extraordinary measures,’ which are designed to accelerate the delivery of Ballot Mail in the final weeks of the election season.”
The term “extraordinary measures” refers to the expedited time frame that the Postal Service typically employs for general elections. This year it started on Oct. 21.
Voters broke a record for mail-in ballots during the 2020 elections. Mailed ballots comprised about 43% of all votes, compared with about a quarter of all votes in the 2016 and 2018 elections.
The Postal Service expects success similar to the 2020 election, when 99.89% of voter ballots were delivered within seven days to election officials.
Millions of voters across the country have already voted early, whether in person, at drop boxes or by mail, The New York Times reported. Within the first three weeks of October, the Postal Service reported having delivered 98.3% of completed vote-by-mail ballots to election officials within three days.
Still, multiple election officials have expressed concerns about mail-in voting during such a close election and encouraged voters using the mail to post their ballots at least a week early.
