USPS audit finds ballot-handling failures at multiple primary facilities

Supreme Court weighs expanded USPS role as audit findings emerge

A U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General audit found that some facilities failed to properly handle mail ballots during this year’s primary elections, identifying gaps in training, tracking, and handling that could lead to ballots being rejected. Auditors observed election-mail operations at 14 processing facilities and 73 delivery units across eight states.

The audit, dated Sept. 4 and first reported by ProPublica, found insufficient staff training on properly and expeditiously handling mail ballots, deficiencies in how ballots were tracked, and errors that caused delays. Together those problems risked incorrect postmarks or ballots arriving late at election offices, which could lead to their rejection.

The audit said the failures increased “the risk that Election and Political Mail is not handled, documented, monitored, and reported in accordance with Postal Service policy.” It also said “most facilities we visited generally adhered to Postal Service’s election-related policies and procedures.”

Auditors found no election-related training materials posted at 22 of 73 delivery units, or about 30%. The report said local managers and employees at some locations were unfamiliar with requirements for processing election mail.

Management at 10 of 82 facilities, or about 12%, was not aware of the proper way to postmark a ballot, the audit found. Some managers thought ballots should receive postmarks when they went out to election offices rather than earlier, when they reached a processing facility or retail counter.

Retail clerks at five of nine mail processing facilities studied sometimes used hand stamps with inaccurate dates, according to the audit. At a Pennsylvania facility on the state’s primary election day, the error caused 56 ballots to receive the wrong postmark date.

At 13 of 82 facilities, proper procedures to confirm that election mail had been sent out from delivery units each day were not completed. At a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, processing plant, 108 ballots were grouped with other mail and had to be expedited to Pittsburgh on the morning of the election so they would count.

Correct postmarks can determine whether election officials count or reject a ballot. Election officials in 14 states and Washington, D.C., count ballots only when the Postal Service postmarks them by Election Day.

The Postal Service processed completed ballots from voters to election officials “on time” nearly 99% of the time during the primaries, up from about 98% in 2024, among about 6.3 million ballots it could track, according to the report. The report does not define “on time.” The measure refers to how quickly USPS handled a ballot, not whether it reached election officials on time.

“While instances of non-compliance were low relative to overall volume, the presence of similar procedural gaps across multiple facilities indicates a need for improved understanding and increased enforcement of Postal Service policies among its employees,” the audit said.

In its response, the Postal Service wrote that “while we acknowledge that we can always reinforce and amplify our internal processes and procedures (and will continue to do so between now and November) — overall ballot mail performance is strong.” The agency acknowledged some instances in which employees did not follow policies and procedures but described other errors as “isolated incidents,” including some New Jersey ballots that were delivered to Tennessee before being sent back.

The Postal Service agreed with all but one of the audit’s recommendations for protecting against future problems — the exception being a recommendation that it promptly notify customers affected by new regional transportation plans. The Postal Service did not immediately respond to ProPublica’s request for further comment Wednesday evening.

The findings emerged as the Supreme Court weighs whether to let the Postal Service proceed with rules that would allow the agency to regulate mail voting under a March executive order signed by President Donald Trump. The order requires states to give USPS a list of all voters eligible to receive a ballot by mail and requires USPS to use those lists to determine which ballots get sent to voters.

ProPublica previously reported that top Postal Service employees and a whistleblower who filed a disclosure with U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., had expressed concern that the system could disenfranchise large numbers of eligible voters because of its design and lack of testing.

Election experts told ProPublica that the Supreme Court should consider the audit findings as it weighs expanded USPS responsibilities.

David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research and a former Justice Department civil rights lawyer, said the audit confirms that USPS has “a long way to go to meet its core obligations of delivering election mail in a timely manner.”

“The administration and USPS are simply incapable of successfully meeting vast and radical new responsibilities under the president’s executive order,” Becker said.

The American Postal Workers Union said Wednesday in a brief filed with the Supreme Court that implementing the rules was not practical and posed a “significant risk of wide swaths of Americans not being able to vote by mail.”

Some state election officials said the requirements would be impossible to meet for the November election even if the Supreme Court allowed the rule to proceed, with mail ballots beginning to go out this month. Chelsey Wininger, executive director of the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, said the audit shows the Postal Service “struggles to implement even basic changes to postal process consistently” and reinforces the organization’s opposition to new rules this close to an election.