US Postal Service plans to downsize a mail hub in Nevada. What does that mean for mail-in ballots?

RENO, Nev. (AP) — A U.S. Postal Service plan to downsize a regional mail hub in Reno and move package and letter processing to Sacramento, California, has members of Nevada’s congressional delegation and the state’s top election administrator worried about service delays and mail-in ballot handling.

The elected officials point to a lack of transparency in what Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has cast as a money-saving move, and say they’re concerned that mail service will be snarled by the hourslong roundtrip drive over the Sierra Nevada.

“There is also the matter of Nevada’s mail ballots being taken to California for processing before being returned to Nevada and their voters,” Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar said in a protest letter.

Every active registered voter in Nevada is sent a mail ballot. If the change moves forward, Aguilar said it may not be possible for ballots placed in the mail in central and northern Nevada on Election Day to be postmarked the same day.

Processing returned votes out of state “has the potential to disenfranchise thousands of Nevada voters and would unquestionably impact the results of Nevada’s elections,” he wrote.

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