LAS VEGAS — The United States Postal Service might not be able to deliver when it comes to the 2024 race for the White House, election officials have warned.
The agency faces “serious questions about processing facility operations, lost or delayed election mail, and front-line training deficiencies,” which have shown no improvement “despite repeated engagement” with USPS headquarters, according to 33 secretaries of state and state election directors.
The election officials sounded the alarm in a letter emailed Thursday to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy.
Nevada, along with California, Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, Washington state, and the District of Columbia, use exclusively mail-in ballots.
If a “higher than usual” number of ballots are marked “undeliverable,” it could disqualify otherwise eligible voters, as could the mishandling of mailed ballots, the election officials cautioned.
“In some cases, this has resulted in misdelivery of ballots such that voters are disenfranchised,” the group, which was led by Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon and New Mexico state elections director Mandy Vigil, wrote.
“We implore you to take immediate and tangible corrective action to address the ongoing performance issues with USPS election mail service. Failure to do so will risk limiting voter participation and trust in the election process,” they wrote.
Problems with how the Postal Service handles mail-in ballots came to the forefront during the 2020 presidential election, when the COVID-19 pandemic caused slow downs and increased the number of voters who turned to mailing it in.
Postal Service election mail chief Adrienne Marshall rejected the warnings of trouble ahead come November.
“We are ready to deliver. We were successful in 2020 delivering a historic volume of mail-in ballots; also in 2022 and will do so again in November 2024,” she said in a statement emailed to The Post, vowing to give the state election officials “detailed information” about the agency’s plans to make election mail move promptly.
DeJoy promised over the summer to delay certain changes until after the election in a bid to avoid slowing election-related mail, including shift of northern Nevada mail processing from Reno to a facility in Sacramento, California.
The letter arrived the same day the 290,000-member National Association of Letter Carriers announced its endorsement of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz.
The pro-union pols are willing “to address the unique challenges facing the Postal Service and our members,” Letter Carriers union president Brian L. Renfroe said in a statement.
Voters can rely on his members to get the job done for the 2024 elections — including Trump supporters, he said.
“All Americans can rest assured that our nation’s letter carriers can — and will — carry out their duties this election with the same integrity, responsibility and devotion to mission they exhibit as they deliver for the American people during election season and every other day,” Renfroe promised.
“To suggest that they would do anything less is to demean America’s postal employees — many of whom, it’s worth noting, are wearing their second uniform in service to this nation.”
