Voters are advised to return their ballots early because of mail delay concerns

This June, the final count in Utah’s Iron County left Jon Whittaker feeling ill.

Whittaker, a county clerk who runs elections in the southwestern Utah county, received more than 400 mail-in ballots for the primary that were postmarked after the state’s legal deadline of June 24. Those votes had to be left out of the official tally of results.

“It was several times more than what we are used to seeing,” Whittaker says. “Because that canvass of the will of the people is a sacred thing, it made me sick.”

The U.S. Postal Service says a number of those ballots were deposited in collection boxes too late to make the postmark deadline.

But Whittaker says he suspects the fault may not lie with all of those voters, as mishandled mail-in ballots and delayed deliveries plagued other primary elections in multiple states this year. And now, as early voting for the general elections begins, election officials around the country are raising concerns about whether the U.S. Postal Service can handle the influx of election mail expected this fall.

Last week, the National Association of State Election Directors and National Association of Secretaries of State issued a public letter to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy that echoed a recent critical report by the Postal Service’s internal watchdog, the USPS Office of Inspector General.

“We saw things that we weren't used to seeing in this primary cycle, and it felt like it was different,” says Mandy Vigil, New Mexico’s election director and the current president of NASED. “We've been raising these alarms [with the Postal Service] for the past year, but the lack of response and really being able to see any true change throughout that primary cycle made us feel like this was necessary, going