With just six days left before the 2024 election, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has issued a warning to all Americans who plan to vote by mail, urging them to post their ballots today in order to ensure they are collected and counted in time for the election.
As reported by Fox News, the Postal Service’s press release on Monday told American voters that “if you choose to vote by mail, please mail early as every day counts.”
“We continue to recommend that it is a good common-sense measure for voters who choose to mail in their ballots to do so before Election Day and at least a week before their election office needs to receive them,” the statement continued. “If a ballot is due on Election Day, the Postal Service recommends mailing the ballot by this Tuesday (October 29).”
Although the vast majority of U.S. states do not accept ballots that arrive after Election Day, 18 states and Washington D.C. have extended deadlines by which ballots can arrive after Election Day and still be counted.
In addition to states that are not considered battlegrounds like Alaska and Texas, the swing state of Nevada has such a law in place, allowing ballots to be counted if they are received up to four days after the election; however, all such ballots must be postmarked with the date of November 5th. Ballots with vague postmarks that arrive up to three days after the election will also be counted in Nevada.
However, battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, and Wisconsin all require mail-in ballots to arrive on or before Election Day in order to be counted.
“In addition to the processes and procedures specific to Election Mail that the Postal Service deploys all year long, as in previous general elections, the Postal Service is deploying extraordinary measures in the final weeks of the election season to swiftly move Ballot Mail entered close to or on Election Day and/or the state’s return deadline,” USPS said in its statement.
Among those measures, the USPS said, are additional delivery and pick-up schedules, “specialized sort plans” to speed up the process of delivering ballots in particular, and “local handling and transportation of ballots.”
The election is on Tuesday, November 5th.
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