USPS cites 97.94% on-time rate amid partisan mail-voting divide
Confidence that the U.S. Postal Service will deliver election mail on time has fallen 13 percentage points over two years, according to an NPR/PBS News/Marist poll of 1,280 voters conducted Sept. 14-15. While a majority of voters still say they feel confident or very confident about USPS delivery of mail to voters and election officials, that share dropped from 71% in 2024 to 58% this year — a level the poll recorded as comparable to the fall of 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The survey was released shortly after the Supreme Court ruled Sept. 14 to block the Trump administration from using USPS to restrict voting by mail for the midterm elections. Following the ruling, USPS is expected to keep delivering election mail as originally planned, including putting in place its “extraordinary measures” policy for speeding the delivery of general-election ballots beginning a week before Election Day.
In a statement, USPS said it delivered more than 233 million pieces of election mail this fiscal year through the end of August, recording an on-time score of 97.94%. “There has been a lot of misinformation recently about the Postal Service’s role in the electoral process, which may have had an impact on public sentiment,” the statement said. “But the Postal Service’s actual performance metrics speak for themselves.” “Postal employees take great pride in their responsibility to support the democratic process,” the statement added.
In recent decades, the self-funded mailing agency has struggled to keep up with its legal mandate to deliver mail at least six days a week to almost every address in the United States. With people and businesses sending less first-class mail — its most revenue-generating service — USPS began a 10-year restructuring plan in 2021. The cost-cutting efforts have led to longer expected delivery times and lowered service-performance goals that USPS has been unable to fully reach, a recent Government Accountability Office report found.
The agency’s reorganization has also affected when mail receives a postmark, which is often used to determine whether a mail-in ballot was sent on time. In Washington state, 19 counties saw their rate of ballots rejected due to late postmarks more than double for this year’s primary election compared with 2024, according to a report released by Democratic U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell and Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs.
This month, the USPS Office of Inspector General concluded that despite making major changes to its delivery network, USPS has not improved its financial position and has disproportionately affected rural communities. The inspector general warned of the risk of losing “customers who perceive the service as inequitable, which could harm its brand and reputation, and adversely affect revenue.”
The latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll also found a continuing partisan divide in voters’ views about mail-in voting. Democratic voters (32%) are more likely than Republican voters (12%) and independent voters (26%) to say they will vote by mail in this year’s general election.
Republicans (70%) were more likely than Democrats (18%) and independents (32%) to say that they think there is a great deal or good amount of fraud when people are given the option to vote by mail. President Trump — who votes by mail — has long claimed, without evidence, that mail voting is “corrupt.” A 2025 review by the Brookings Institution, however, found mail-voting fraud to be exceptionally rare.
According to the new poll, the majority of registered voters overall (55%) say they believe there is little or no fraud when mail-in voting is available. Most voters (75%) also report they feel confident that their state or local government will run a fair and accurate election for the midterms — up from 69% of registered voters polled in March.
Editor’s note: The U.S. Postal Service is a financial supporter of NPR.