Ballots rejected for late postmarks rose where the Postal Service cut rural mail pickups, analyses find

Mail ballots rejected for late postmarks rose sharply in this year’s primaries in parts of Washington, Oregon and California, and an analysis by ProPublica linked the increase in rural areas to changes in how the U.S. Postal Service moves and postmarks mail. The Postal Service says it is taking extra steps for the November 3 general election.

Oregon

In Oregon’s May primary, 7,314 ballots that arrived during the seven-day grace period were rejected because they carried late postmarks, according to the Secretary of State’s office. That is 35% more than the 5,404 rejected in May 2022, the last midterm primary. The rejection rate for grace-period ballots was 13.1%, compared with 9.5% in the 2024 primary and 8.2% in 2022.

Secretary of State Tobias Read said at a September 8 news conference that the rate was “unacceptable,” the Associated Press reported. Read urged voters to use the state’s 324 official drop boxes and asked the Legislature for emergency money for 20 more, along with an opt-in ballot tracking tool.

Washington

Washington counted 20,267 late-postmarked ballots in this year’s primary, up from 16,131 in 2024, the AP reported. In two rural counties that lean toward Trump, late-postmarked ballots made up more than 4% of ballots cast.

In Stevens County, auditor Lori Larsen’s office received 547 late-postmarked ballots on August 7, three days after the primary, the AP reported. In Yakima County, nearly 4.4% of primary ballots were rejected for late postmarks. Auditor Charles Ross told the AP that local mail now goes to a processing center in Spokane, about 200 miles away, before returning to Yakima.

ProPublica, in an analysis published October 22, found that in the 30 mostly rural Washington counties most affected by the Postal Service changes, the share of ballots postmarked late more than tripled compared with the 2022 primary. In Garfield County, 19 ballots, nearly 1 in 10 of those cast, had late postmarks, compared with one in 2022. In Pend Oreille County, 6% of ballots were rejected for arriving late, compared with 1% in 2022.

“It was pretty awful telling people we couldn’t count their votes,” Pend Oreille auditor Marianne Nichols told ProPublica.

California and other states

About 93,500 California ballots were rejected for being postmarked or arriving too late in the June primary, according to the AP. ProPublica’s analysis covered Washington, California, Ohio, North Carolina and Oregon. It found that late-ballot rejection rates in affected counties doubled or tripled compared with 2022, and that increases in unaffected counties were much smaller. ProPublica noted that North Carolina and Ohio have eliminated grace periods since 2022, which may have contributed to higher rates there. Wisconsin showed no measurable link to the changes, ProPublica reported.

ProPublica also found that at least seven closely contested congressional districts, including Washington’s 3rd, California’s 22nd and North Carolina’s 11th, are in areas affected by the service changes in the primary.

What changed at the Postal Service

The AP reported that the Postal Service finalized a rule in December under which a postmark reflects the day mail is handled at a processing center, not the day the agency first takes possession of it. It also reported that mail from post offices or collection boxes more than 50 miles from a distribution center is now transported once daily instead of twice.

ProPublica reported that the Postal Service has extended the transportation changes to almost 20,000 ZIP codes and that officials expect full implementation within two years. The Postal Regulatory Commission warned in January 2025 that the plan could be disruptive to rural communities and might not save as much money as expected, ProPublica reported.

The Postal Service acknowledged to the AP that the transport changes could delay postmarking. It said customers can ask for a free manual postmark at a post office and advised voters to mail ballots at least a week before they are due. Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs told ProPublica that the agency was not direct enough about the effect the changes would have on postmarks. “What they said was, ‘We are going to change the way we do postmarks,'” Hobbs said. “That was it.”

Plans for November 3

Postal Service leaders told ProPublica that delays are less likely in the general election because of “extraordinary measures” the agency applies to election mail. A memo sent to more than 30,000 post offices says that for the 10 days before the election, managers should separate completed ballots from other first-class mail and deliver them to election offices the day they arrive.

Elena Patel, a Brookings Institution researcher, projected in a September analysis that tens of thousands of mail ballots could be rejected in the general election if the primary pattern holds. She told ProPublica the agency’s plan “depends on flawless execution.”

Mail voting is used by nearly one-third of U.S. voters, according to the AP.