Thousands of mail-in ballots could be discounted under new post office policy

A recent change to how the U.S. Postal Service says it postmarks letters could discount the ballots of thousands of last-minute voters.

Many Americans have long assumed that tax returns, ballots and other mailed documents sent on deadline would be marked as sent the day they are dropped in a mailbox.

But the Postal Service announced Dec. 24 that it was making no such guarantees about postmarks. Its new guidelines say a postmark might come days later, when mail is actually processed at a regional facility, sometimes miles from a local mailbox.

Most states require mail ballots to be in the hands of election officials by Election Day. Fourteen states provide a grace period allowing mail ballots to be counted if they arrive after Election Day if they are postmarked by then, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. More than two dozen others provide grace periods for military and overseas voters.

A Postal Service spokesperson, Martha Johnson, said the new guidance does not actually signal a change to the current practice. It is merely putting that practice into the service’s written protocols. Voters can still get a postmark on the day they mail a ballot if they request one at a local post office.

But at least one postal union leader says this is a change from current practice and that, previously, mail would typically be postmarked for the day it came in, even if it was processed later. “I think it’s a huge deal,” said Charles Charleston, president of the National Postal Mail Handlers Union Local 311, which represents mail handlers in Texas.

State election supervisors and experts acknowledge that postmarks have grown less reliable over the past decade, and many have already been warning voters not to wait until the last minute. But they say that the new guidelines will intensify the need to educate procrastinating voters and put added pressure on the Postal Service to speed up ballot deliveries.

Mail-in voting is already under increased scrutiny and legal jeopardy as President Donald Trump continues to seek an end to the practice, which he falsely labels fraudulent. Wide-reaching changes to mail-in voting could be on the horizon regardless. The Supreme Court announced in November that it will decide whether laws that allow states to count mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day are constitutional. The Republican National Committee, the Mississippi Republican Party, the Libertarian Party of Mississippi and a Mississippi voter challenged the state’s mail-in ballot law in 2024 in lawsuits, arguing that federal Election Day statutes require ballots to be received by state officials by Election Day. The ruling is expected to drop by this summer and could influence the midterm elections in dozens of states.

The distinction over postmarks is crucial to voters in the states and territories that accept ballots late, as long as they were postmarked before or on Election Day.

New York, Texas, California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington are among the states with grace periods for mail-in ballots. Many of these states also give voters the option of leaving their ballots at special election drop boxes.

But some of the states with grace periods, like Texas, Mississippi and West Virginia, do not have boxes where voters can drop off their ballot, making absentee voters even more reliant on the Postal Service, especially those in rural areas. Other states have tightened their rules: Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine recently signed legislation eliminating Ohio’s four-day grace period for late-arriving mail-in ballots.

“Voters who take early action and who request their ballots early, who mail back their voter registrations early, who mail in their candidate nomination petitions or drop them off in person, those people are all going to be fine,” said Tammy Patrick, chief executive officer for programs at the Election Center, a national association of election officials. Patrick served as the federal compliance officer for the Maricopa County Elections Department in Arizona for more than a decade. “But the ones who wait are going to potentially be the ones who are going to be the most at risk.”

Ballots that are mailed before or on Election Day but arrive with a postmark reflecting a later date and therefore are not counted will probably make up a small percentage of the total count. But that number could still amount to thousands of disenfranchised voters, according to Michael McDonald, a political science professor and elections specialist at the University of Florida. Younger people, older people and people of color are among the groups with the highest rates of mail ballot rejections, he said.

“Is it going to be enough to change the outcome of an election? Only if it’s really close,” McDonald said. The effects will be most noticeable in competitive races with slim margins, particularly at the local level, he said.

But it can be difficult to assess the scale of the effect — even for those in charge of administering elections.

“Our office does not know how many Californians might be impacted because we have no way of knowing how those who are voting will return their ballot,” the California Office of the Secretary of State said in a statement. The office recommends California voters who choose to mail their ballots do so as early as possible and that those mailing their ballot on Election Day get a manual postmark from an employee at the post office or drop off their ballot at a drop box.

Oregon, which automatically mails all voters a ballot, has been experiencing challenges with the Postal Service for years, said Tess Seger, deputy chief of staff for communications of the Oregon secretary of state’s office.

“That relationship is not exactly instilling trust at the moment,” Seger said, adding that the Postal Service has not been responsive to questions from their office.

State election officials had already noticed discrepancies and delays with postmarking and ballot delivery in recent years and had updated the state’s guidance ahead of a November special election, Seger said. Now, Oregon advises voters to mail their ballots a week before Election Day.

The White House did not respond to questions about whether Trump supports the change or has any concerns about mail-in voting during elections in 2026 as a result. Trump in March issued an executive order that sought to eliminate grace periods for mail ballots by punishing states that have them, but a federal judge has blocked that part of his order for now. Trump has long railed against mail voting and in August promised to lead a movement to abolish it.

The update puts additional pressure on election workers to get the word out to voters and could add to broader uncertainty about the election process.

“This is not a political system right now that can handle a hell of a lot of confusion and disorder,” said Nathaniel Persily, a law professor and election specialist at Stanford University.

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Patrick Marley contributed to this report.