16 states do not allow enough time for last-minute mail voting

The Postal Service has said that it is equipped to handle an expected surge in election mail, which is projected to still be less than the volume of mail sent during last year’s Christmas holiday season.

But it warned states that they need to allow a buffer of seven days each way to ensure on-time delivery of ballots.

In most places, it probably won’t take that long. In 2018, more than 95% of election mail arrived in one to three days — a standard that the current postmaster general has committed to for November, despite reports of postal slowdowns in some places.

But 16 states allow voters to apply for mail ballots so close to Election Day that their votes could be at risk of being too late if they are sent and returned through the Postal Service. Officials in these places recommend applying for and sending in ballots early, or dropping them off either at local election offices or in secure drop boxes if available.

In Minnesota, voters can request a ballot the day before the election, too late to be mailed to them on time. But if voters request their ballots early and postmark them by Election Day, they should arrive in time to be counted. Montana has the same deadline for requesting a ballot but does not accept those returned after the election.

“If you do not want to leave your house, you want to mail your ballot back close to Election Day, and you’re not in a state where a postmark or other information matters,” said Tammy Patrick, a senior adviser at the Democracy Fund, “you could encounter a challenge or an issue in your vote being counted.”

19 states, including Ohio, might allow enough time for last-minute mail voting

Nineteen states provide last-minute voters with windows of at least three days for receiving ballots and three days for returning them — which is less than half the time the Postal Service recommends but within the delivery target promised by the postmaster general. But that’s cutting it close, especially because election officials also need time to process applications before they mail the ballots.

Some states have pushed back against the Postal Service’s recommendation for seven-day windows each way. “Idaho’s absentee ballot request deadline already provides sufficient time for ballots to be mailed to the voter, marked by the voter, and returned by the voter,” said Jason Hancock, Idaho’s deputy secretary of state, in an email. “There is no need for Idaho to make any changes.”

Officials in other states have had trouble changing their deadlines. In Ohio, voters may request absentee ballots until Oct. 31, the Saturday before the election. Ballots must be postmarked by the day before Election Day, and they can be received and processed by county election boards up to 10 days after the election.

Ohio Secretary of State Frank Larose worries that voters who request their ballot on deadline day probably won’t receive the ballot in the mail quickly enough to then return it in time for it to be counted.

Larose pushed to move the deadline to apply for mail ballots to an earlier date. The legislature did not approve the proposal, so he is urging voters to send in their applications early.

“If a voter is informed of a deadline set in state law, the fair assumption is that it’s a feasible one,” Larose wrote in an op-ed that appeared in The Dispatch.

“In this case, it’s not.”

6 states allow enough time for last-minute mail voting.

A handful of states should allow enough time for last-minute voters to request and return ballots on time. Maryland moved its application deadline earlier by a week and is now allowing ballots 10 days to arrive if postmarked by Election Day.

Still, even if voters are able to successfully cast a ballot right at their state’s deadline, it doesn’t mean they should. The message from election experts echoes a phrase common in the early days of the coronavirus outbreak: Voting early will help “flatten the curve” of election mail and allow plenty of time for officials to process an unprecedented number of ballots.

Data from the presidential primaries in Georgia, Indiana, Washington and Maine show large spikes in ballots arriving right before or on Election Day. It will be a challenge for small local elections offices to handle a flood of ballots all at once in November, said Patrick of Democracy Fund, who previously was an election official in Arizona.

Another benefit of returning a ballot early: Many states allow voters to fix, or “cure,” their ballots if they are rejected for problems such as a missing signature or a signature that does not match one on file. But officials would need time to notify voters of mistakes, and fixes often need to be made by Election Day or shortly after.

9 states and D.C. will send ballots to most voters automatically

In states with all-mail elections, there is a lower risk for voters who procrastinate. While they do have to worry about returning their ballots on time, they generally do not have to request them. Nine states, and the District of Columbia, plan to send every registered voter or every active registered voter a ballot for the November election.

President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign has filed lawsuits in several states that have expanded mail voting, including New Jersey, where the Democratic governor issued an executive order that all active registered voters would receive a ballot. The president has intensified his criticisms of the Postal Service and continued to make false accusations about the risks of voting by mail.

Officials in some states conducting all-mail elections have taken issue with the president’s message.

“Politicizing these administrative processes is dangerous and undermines public confidence in our elections,” said Kim Wyman, secretary of state in Washington. “Though it is imperative the agency maintain its functionality and efficiency, this volume of work is by no means unusual, and is an operation I am confident the U.S. Postal Service is sufficiently prepared to fulfill.”