Leaders of two national groups representing thousands of state and local election workers are imploring the head of the U.S. Postal Service to take “extraordinary measures” to fix the nation’s ongoing mail crisis that has led to lost and delayed election-related mail.

The National Association of Secretaries of State and the National Association of State Election Directors sent a letter last week to U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy criticizing the federal mail service over the past year for failing to deliver election mail in a “timely and accurate manner.” 

The letter comes less than a month before Georgians are slated to receive absentee ballots in the mail and just two months before voters head to the polls Nov. 5 for what is expected to be one of the most crucial elections in modern history.

The three-page letter dated Sept. 11 asked DeJoy to use “extraordinary measures at least a month prior to the November election. … Temporary measures will not be sufficient to address the persistent issues highlighted by election officials. Failure to do so will risk limiting voter participation and trust in the election process.”

The letter outlined ongoing problems with lost and delayed mail, operational glitches at mail processing facilities and poor training of mail workers.

“We have not seen improvement or concerted efforts to remediate our concerns,” the letter stated. “In fact, many issues raised by election officials are echoed in the recent findings of the [U.S. Postal Service] Office of Inspector General Audit, Election Mail Readiness for the 2024 General Election.”

The letter was signed by 21 heads of state and local election offices nationwide, including W. Travis Doss Jr., president of the Georgia Association of Voter Registration and Election Officials. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger did not sign the letter because he is not an officer, only a member of the National Association of Secretaries of State, Mike Hassinger, a spokesperson in Raffensperger’s office, told State Affairs, but Hassinger said Raffensperger endorses the letter. The letter was sent on behalf of election officials in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. territories.

“There are a couple of parts of list maintenance and absentee ballots that depend on the mail service getting information to the voters,” Hassinger said. “We want the post office to tighten up before the election.” 
The urgency is highlighted as absentee ballots are set to be mailed out in Georgia starting Oct.7.

Georgia’s overhauled election law cut the mailing time of ballots by two weeks, Doss said, adding further pressure on election officials to ensure ballots get to voters on time. 

“We used to mail everything out [starting] 45 days [before the election],” said Doss, who is also executive director of the Richmond County Board of Elections in Augusta. “And now it’s been shortened.”

Doss expects his office to mail about 5,000 absentee ballots for the general election at a total cost of about $6,000.

DeJoy came under fire in April when U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff from Georgia grilled him during a congressional hearing about problems with the mail. Ossoff’s questioning centered on the new but troubled Regional Processing & Distribution Center in Palmetto.

“I’ve got constituents with prescriptions that aren’t being delivered. I’ve got constituents who can’t pay their rent and their mortgages. I’ve got businesses who aren’t able to ship products or receive supplies,” Sen. Ossoff told DeJoy. “I think postal workers are out there every single day working their hearts out to deliver the mail on time. But if they don’t have the infrastructure and the management competence … to make a transition like this without drastically impairing the core function of the Postal Service, everyone in my state is losing. The amount of distress this is causing my constituents is massive.”

In July, Ossoff met with DeJoy to further discuss continuing issues and improvement plans at the Palmetto facility.

Georgia’s mail problem is part of a larger, system-wide issue.

“You can blame [the Palmetto facility] as far as Georgia is concerned,” Doss said. “But what’s happening in Colorado? What’s happening in Arizona? They’re not coming through the new Palmetto station.”