By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Postal delivery issues are raising concern about whether everyone who wants to cast an absentee ballot for the April 28 election will be able to. The final date to request a ballot is April 25.
That’s cutting it close, said Terry Burton, director of the Wood County Board of Elections.
As of Friday morning (April 24), 16,363 ballots had been mailed out to voters who requested them, while 11,736 had been received back from voters.
He told Clint Corpe, host of “The Morning Show,” Thursday that his office had been turning around applications within a day of receipt, and is now turning them around the same day.
Any votes received after April 28, must be postmarked April 27 to count. Voters do have the option of hand delivering their ballots to the drop box outside the Board of Elections in the County Building in Bowling Green on April 28.
Secretary of State Dave LaRose sent a letter Thursday to the state’s congressional delegation expressing his concern.
“We are finding that the delivery of the mail is taking far longer than what is published by the United States Postal Service (USPS) as expected delivery times,” he wrote. “Instead of first-class mail taking 1-3 days for delivery, we have heard wide reports of it taking as long as 7-9 days. As you can imagine, these delays mean it is very possible that many Ohioans who have requested a ballot may not receive it in time.”
He said that his office and county board of elections have been working with local postal officials but those have largely been to no avail.
“While we certainly understand and respect the adversity that mail carriers are facing right now, something must be done to deliver elections mail promptly so Ohioans may have their voice heard in this primary election,” LaRose wrote.
Jo Hollingsworth, of Fostoria, experienced these issues. She was disappointed when the election scheduled for March 17 was postponed.
Ten days later she mailed away for her absentee ballot to the Board of Elections in Bowling Green. When she hadn’t received it a week later, she called the board of elections.
“I wanted to vote so I paid attention to this,” she said.
The official she spoke to offer to mail her another application. Then on Saturday, the original application arrived. She sent that in to get her absentee ballot that Monday, April 6. And then she waited and waited. It finally arrived on April 18. She also received a notification that because there were problems with delivery to Bloomdale, Fostoria, and North Baltimore, second ballots were being posted. Hollingsworth sent in the ballot she had in hand.
Amanda Schackow heard a number of similar stories while working as a volunteer for a political campaign. People were reporting not receiving any mail of several days in a row, and then receiving a high volume. This was true of all mail not just absentee ballots. She said she was concerned about mail from other government agencies regarding benefits such as unemployment and SNAP. Delays could cause them to miss deadlines and appointments, she wrote.
Another ballot arrived a few days later. It was postmarked April 9, 12 days before.
“That’s a long time to get from Bowling Green to Fostoria,” she said.
LaRose wrote in his letter that “election officials have reported numerous issues this election cycle, from missed mail deliveries at local boards of elections to delivery times in excess of 10 days for first class letters. The underlying issues must be immediately identified and corrected.”
In his letter to the congressional delegation, La Rose made four recommendations for addressing the problem.
1. Assign additional staff to local USPS offices and encourage extra hours, even on Sunday, April 26, to ensure prompt delivery of election-related mail.
2. Work immediately to identify delivery standard shortcomings.
3. Conduct a thorough search at USPS facilities for unprocessed mail. Management at all local USPS offices and processing facilities should conduct a thorough review to ensure all election-related mail is being properly processed.
4. Ensure each USPS office promptly provides mail to the county boards of elections on Saturday, April 25, 2020, and, upon receipt of the absentee ballots which are being mailed to the voters, have the necessary resources on hand to provide for prompt delivery of mail to voters.
Despite requests for response from the USPS in Cleveland, one was not forthcoming. (Ed. note A response was received late afternoon on Monday, April 27. See below.)
State Rep. Paula Hicks-Hudson (D-Toledo) sent a letter to Secretary of State Frank LaRose seeking assurances that voters will be permitted to vote if they show up on Tuesday, April 28 and that their ballots will be counted. Mail delays are reportedly leaving a lot of Ohio voters without a vote-by-mail ballot.
In the letter, Hicks-Hudson says the directive send out by the secretary of state last week instructing boards of elections to allow people to vote a regular or provisional ballot if they show up at their county board on Tuesday, April 28, seemed definitive. Disabled voters and those without a home mailing address will be permitted to vote a regular ballot, and others are to be given a provisional ballot.
However, a poster distributed by LaRose’s office seems to put additional stipulations on who can cast a provisional ballot. “We need your assurance that every voter who appears to vote on April 28 will be permitted to cast a provisional ballot at a minimum,” Hicks-Hudson wrote. “We need your assurance that those provisional ballots will be counted.”
These problems come at a time when the postal service is facing financial difficulties because of the pandemic as well as facing hostilities from the Trump Administration, reports the Ohio Capital Journal.
“At a time when America needs the Postal Service more than ever, the reason we are so needed is having a devastating effect on our business,” U.S. Postmaster General and CEO Megan J. Brennan said earlier this month. “Sales are plummeting as a result of the pandemic. The sudden drop in mail volumes, our most profitable revenue stream, is steep and may never fully recover.”
The following statement was issued April 27 by the US Postal Service:
“The U.S. Mail serves as a secure, efficient and effective means for citizens and campaigns to participate in the electoral process, and the Postal Service is committed to delivering Election Mail in a timely manner. We employ a robust and proven process to ensure proper handling of all Election Mail, including ballots. This includes close coordination and partnerships with election officials at the local, county, and state levels.
“Despite the extraordinarily tight statutory timelines for Ohio’s all mail election on Tuesday, the Postal Service is making extraordinary efforts to process and deliver ballots by coordinating very closely with the Ohio Secretary of State’s office. There are no significant postal staffing issues across the state of Ohio and we are delivering every route every day as normal. Most First-Class Mail is delivered within 2-5 days, consistent with our delivery standards. Customers should also be aware of pickup times indicated on local collection boxes when mailing. Mail must be taken to our Post Offices during business hours or deposited in a collection box before collection time to receive a postmark the same day.”
The USPS has also issued a COVID 19 statement.
