As I understand it, a mail ballot must bear a legibble and unambiguous postmark with a valid date. Which means, if challenged, poll workers will have to scrutinize every postmark and throw any not clear.
It’s been years since I last received a letter with a legible postmart… I haven’t heard anyone say anything about this.
On this topic, postmarks are also important for timely filing of tax returns. Our office often supplies the envelopes to people to mail their returns in, for the ones they have to mail (mostly Personal Property Tax waiver affidavits and 1099s filed on paper). Sometimes we don’t get the information until too late to get the taxpayer the forms completed and back to them such that they can get to the post office in time. But never fear! We have our Postmates machine that can supply a postmark! That way the envelope has the correct dated postmark regardless of when it gets dropped in the mail.
I don’t personally look at any of my mail for postmarks and I don’t keep open envelopes around.
My guess is that you haven’t heard anything about it because it’s not an issue.
The envelopes and ballots are supposed to be separated immediately upon opening, so they would have no other way of knowing who cast which ballot.
They would only do this after validating everything on the outside of the envelope, which means not only the voter’s signature but also the postmark.
But— At least in California, the ballot return envelopes are pre-printed with a “Business Reply Mail” mark or some-such, so the voter doesn’t need to put any stamp on it. I don’t think the Post Office ever puts postmarks on those. So I don’t know how that plays, unless the P. O. does postmark ballot envelopes.
Not exactly. Mail ballots received on or before election day qualify regardless of any postmark date. The only possibly affected ballots are those received on Wed or later. And only in those states which allow ballots which are timely postmarked but arrive late.
I suspect in your life you haven’t done very many mass mailings using the business reply feature to get your responses back.
Yes, the post office date-cancels every piece of business replay mail they process. Whether that’s ballots or magazine subscription cards. That’s how they know how much to bill the mailer for postage. At least that’s how it worked when I last did a mass mailing a few years ago.
Now ref the OP, that doesn’t guarantee the cancellation is legible. But it will be there on all but a vanishing percentage of the ballot envelopes that USPS delivers to the counting authorities. Discounting any internal USPS skullduggery of course.
None.
I didn’t know that. Iggorance fought!
And just to remind everyone here, the rules are different in every state. Some need a postmark, others ignore it.