Change in USPS postmarking policy will affect mail-in ballot counting. [View all]

OK so first of all, this information comes to me via a philartelic magazine called Postal Stationery, the publication of the United Postal Stationery Society, of which I am a member. Yes, I AM that big of a nerd. In the March-April 2026 issue (p. 54) I just received, society President Wayne Menuz notes the following:

“The Postal Service is changing the postmark process. From the time when. stamps were first used, the postmark contained the year date when the letter was given to a post office. Later, the month and day were added. The date was either the day the letter was handed to a post office clerk, or when dropped into a post office slot or external box prior to the last collection time advertised on it. For both scenarios, if the mail was processed the next day (or later), the postmark would be backdated to the actual day the letter was placed at the post office to provide a record of its official receipt. This ensured that if the post office processing was behind schedule, the postmarks would still show the day they were recieved and should have been postmarked.

"It has now been annouced that, in the future, the postmark will reflect the date an envelope or card is first processed by an automated sorting machine, and not the drop-off date. By this process, people will no longer be able to determine how long a letter takes to reach its destination based on the postmark. This is because a delay between the day of deposit and the day it is postmarked will no longer be recorded. As far as the Postal Service metrics are concerned, a letter postmarked one day and delivered two days later took 3 days to process, but it could have spent one, two or more additional days waiting to be processed. Good news for Postal Service management and workers (whose bonuses are partially based on delivery metrics), but not so good for their customers.

"Another potential consequence is the requirement in most states for mail-in ballots. Their laws require such ballots be mailed on or before election day, with the postmark used as proof. With the new Postal Service policy, mailing a ballot even a few days before election day is no guarantee the postmark will be on or before the cutoff date.” (snip - emphais added on last part-paragraph)

Menuz’ column goes on to note that Norway has ended mail delivery service, due to lack of volume and expense; while Denmark has stopped delivering letters for similar reasons, concentrating on parcels only. Perhaps that is the trend coming for USPS as well. While I would expect the LOGICAL response to be to move “mail-in” ballots to the internet somehow, even with the inherent security risks that implies, I have stopped expecting any sort of logic from our elected officials. OK, I never really have since I was old enough to critically reason.

What does seem to be the case is that USPS management has, intentionally or not, severly impacted voting-by-mail with a single bureaucratic decree, and it is now for citizens to urge their elected officials to swift action. Sure, that’s likely. The mail-in part of the 2026 elections are likely, therefore, to be a total nightmare.