Election Preparedness

According to USPS communications available only to Postal Service employees, "Absentee balloting materials must not be detained or treated as unpaid mail." (The foregoing was dictated over the phone to me by a USPS customer service representative.)

The U.S. Postal Service should make its no-return policy public and ensure that local post offices know as well.  

So why should you care and bother to add postage to your absentee ballot before mailing it? Well, we're still going to end up paying for this postage one way or the other, starting with higher postage rates.

According to the National Association of State Election Directors, the average absentee ballot costs $.59 to mail and can vary from county to county within a state depending on local races, ballot initiatives and whether you enclose a copy of your voter identification. And since the Postal Service expects more than 31 million ballots to be mailed this fall, at $.59 average postage, this amounts to over $18,290,000.

The bottom line is that we want our absentee ballots to be delivered to our local election officials.

Therefore, the U.S. Postal Service should make its no-return policy public and ensure that local post offices know as well. What makes me think that your local post office may not know? I had spent tons of time at the USPS site and spoke on the phone with two different folks at USPS customer service before I learned the truth from a third customer service rep. So I do not have a lot of confidence that all local post offices are aware of their obligation to deliver absentee ballots regardless of postage.

Note that the states of Hawaii, Minnesota, Nevada and West Virginia cover the cost of postage for absentee ballots; and "[s]ervice members and Americans living abroad can mail their completed ballots free of charge by bringing the ballot to APO/FPO Post Offices or to a consulate of the United States."

Find out all you need to know about early voting by absentee/mail-in ballot or in person at ElectionPreparedness.com .