Postal service sets new rules for mail-in ballots, but a court order keeps them on hold

The postal service has published a revised handling standard for election mail that would change how absentee ballots are postmarked, tracked and delivered in the thirty-one states that accept them by mail. The document runs to fourteen pages and was posted without an announcement.

Under the new standard, a ballot envelope would need a legible postmark applied at a staffed retail counter or by an automated canceller at a processing plant. Ballots dropped into a blue collection box after the final pickup would still be collected, but the postmark would carry the following day’s date — a distinction that decides whether a ballot counts in states with a postmark deadline.

What changes for election offices

The second half of the standard is aimed at county clerks rather than voters. Each participating election office would receive a daily electronic manifest listing every ballot envelope scanned into the network and bound for that office, with a projected delivery date.

Clerks in four states told MNC News that they already build something similar by hand, pulling barcode scans one at a time. “If they hand us the manifest, that is three staff-days a week back,” one county elections director said. “The part that worries me is the postmark rule, because the voter has no way to know which side of the line they are on.”

The tracking piece is a genuine improvement. The postmark piece moves a deadline without telling anyone the deadline moved.— A county elections director in a state with a postmark deadline

Why it is frozen

None of this takes effect yet. A federal district judge issued a preliminary injunction last month in a suit brought by a coalition of county governments, which argued the standard was adopted without the notice period the law requires for changes affecting service. The order bars implementation until the case is resolved or the injunction is lifted.

• Scope: the thirty-one states that accept absentee ballots returned by mail
• Postmark: must be applied at a staffed counter or plant canceller to carry that day’s date
• Tracking: daily electronic manifest of ballots in transit, per election office
• Status: blocked by a preliminary injunction; hearing scheduled for next month

A spokesperson said the standard was published so that election offices could plan for a cycle in which it may apply, and that the agency intends to defend it. Lawyers for the county coalition said they will ask the court to keep the freeze in place through the November cycle regardless of how the underlying question is decided.