USPS cost cuts doubled or tripled late-ballot rejection rates in affected rural counties

A ProPublica analysis finds that late-ballot rejection rates doubled or tripled in counties affected by the Postal Service’s rural transportation cuts compared with the 2022 primary, while comparable increases did not occur where pickup schedules were unchanged. The clearest evidence comes from Washington, California, Ohio, North Carolina and Oregon, states that publish sufficiently detailed ballot data and have used postmark-based grace periods.

The mechanism is the agency’s Regional Transportation Optimization plan. First-class mail from post offices more than 50 miles from a processing centre is increasingly held for a later trip; many locations went from two collections a day to one. A ballot deposited before the local deadline can therefore wait until the next day to receive a postmark, then travel farther before entering the sorting network. The affected footprint expanded from roughly 4,000 ZIP codes before the 2024 election to nearly 20,000 today.

In 11 mostly rural eastern-Washington counties, nearly 2,000 primary ballots arrived too late, versus about 600 in 2022. Stevens County rejected 8% of returned ballots for lateness, up from 1%; Pend Oreille reached 6%; in Garfield County the share approached one in ten. Urban Spokane, whose pickup schedule did not change, recorded fewer late rejections. Across the five-state analysis, the largest effects occurred in areas that voted for Donald Trump in 2024.

USPS says extraordinary procedures for the November 3 general election should reduce the risk. For the final ten days, managers are instructed to separate completed ballots and deliver locally addressed ones to election offices the same day. Officials also tell voters to mail ballots at least a week before state deadlines. Those mitigations can help, but they make valid votes depend on perfect exceptions to the agency’s ordinary workflow.

The cost rationale is also incomplete. USPS projected $4bn in annual savings from its network changes; audits found $2.8bn through fiscal 2025 and documented broader slowdowns. The policy’s democratic cost is concentrated: rural voters receive a shorter practical voting window even when state law gives them the same deadline.