Wow, I just witnessed my local County Clerk going off in the Post Office!

[Wanderlust988]

I just came from making a stop at my local post office in my county, which is a suburb of Lexington, KY. Our local county clerk, a Democrat, just went off inside the post office over ballots! He came in to pick up the ballots. It looks like the lady brought out about 30-50 ballots. He then said "is that all?" And the lady told him that the ballots have to be sent to Lexington and then re-routed back to my city. He want ballistic!

The manager had to come down and the clerk said he didn't know why he paid for a PO box when the ballots have to be sent out to another city and sent back. He said it was very asinine! He said if the ballots are in the post office in my town, they should stay there and put in the PO box. The manager said he didn't disagree with him, but he'd need to call the "command center" and complain. He said he would do so. He also complained about certified mail not getting to places on time. The county clerk then apologized to everyone inside for raising his voice, but everyone said it was okay and they agree with him.

We are not a swing state, but the USPS is fucking crap now. Folks, try not to mail your ballots if you can. If they're messing up the ballots in a small town in a red state, no telling what they're doing elsewhere.

[elleng]

1. 'Thanks' for the info,

and thanks to your local County Clerk.

[33taw]

2. I would find alternatives for voting that do not involve the post office.

[LisaL]

6. What would that be?

You can't do the kind of volume that vote by mail can do unless you state allows a bunch of early voting places. And my state doesn't allow more than one early voting place per county.

[33taw]

12. Some states have ballot drop boxes that are maintained by the Election Clerk.

You can personally drop ballots off at Election Clerk’s offices (check with your county to determine dates/times).

Hand deliver completed ballots on Election Day to polling places.

Call the clerk and schedule a time to vote.

Every state is different, check with your clerk.

I handed a completed ballot to a National Guardsmen outside in WI on Election Day in WI. He handed it to the Election Clerk.

[LisaL]

15. Rules vary from state by state.

My state doesn't allow delivery of ballots on election day to polling places. You can only drop them off at the board of elections. We have the only drop box there at the board of election, thanks to our secretary of state (who as you can guess is a Republican).
We don't call the clerk to schedule a time to vote. What state does that?
Our early voting place can handle ~3,000 people per day, and that with long lines. Probably 300,000 people will vote by mail.
Which means that if those people wanted to vote early at our only voting place, they would need to vote for 100 days.
And we don't have 100 of voting days.
Add to that there is a pandemic going on.

[33taw]

20. Our elections office allows us to call an schedule a time to come in an vote if you are

compromised. We had a mess in WI in April, but the Dems showed up regardless.

[LisaL]

21. Again, that can't accommodate 300,000 people.

NT

[33taw]

24. I am sorry it is such a challenge in your state. I wasn't trying to argue with you.

You asked options, not knowing where you are makes it difficult to help you.

[pnwmom]

18. The only state I know of with only one place per county is TX. Are there other such states? n/t

[LisaL]

22. TX has one drop box per county (thanks Governor Abbott).

But it has numerous early voting places, where one can vote in person.
OH has one drop box per county and one early voting place per county.

[pnwmom]

34. The latest ruling in OH allows counties to have additional drop boxes.

But I assume the R's will appeal, since they always do.

https://www.cleveland.com/open/2020/10/federal-judge-strikes-down-ohio-secretary-of-state-frank-laroses-limit-on-ballot-drop-boxes.html

I'm not sure what "numerous" voting places means in Texas, but here's a map of the numerous drop boxes in my county of 2.2 million people.

https://www.kingcounty.gov/depts/elections/how-to-vote/ballots/returning-my-ballot/ballot-drop-boxes.aspx

[LisaL]

39. Nobody is putting them up because, like you said, SOS is appealing

the decision.
Numerous early voting places in TX means just that, numerous voting places (per county) where people can early vote in person. TX allows multiple early voting places per county.
OH allows one early voting place per county.
Which is why there are long lines of people waiting to vote.

[LisaL]

3. Who decided to do that?

That's some bizarre stuff for sure. Why do they send ballots off to another city only for the ballots to come back to the same post office. Who decided to do that?

[Wanderlust988]

7. Exactly, especially since our PO can do the postmark

There's absolutely no reason why they have to be sent to another city only to come back! That's why he was going off. He didn't get it and no one could explain. And Kentucky has a hard deadline for ballots. They have to be in on election day or they won't count. This could be a problem for late mailers. I plan on early voting next week though.

[Mr. Evil]

36. I'm in Lexington.

I also plan on voting early next week. I'll be wearing my N95 mask and nitrile gloves. I want my vote to count on election night.

[UpInArms]

8. The PATRIOT Act ...

see my post below

[Frustratedlady]

10. We have the same thing happen city.

They send the mail from our city and surrounding area about 90 miles north of us for sorting and it returns during the night. We used to have sorting machines, but apparently the load was too low and they went this route. That was several years ago, not with this DeJoy dude.

[stillcool]

4. we just got our ballots...

and are mailing them tomorrow. I trust postal workers, way, way, more than election officials. There's a reason why the republicans really don't want people to vote by mail.

[33taw]

13. We can track ballot status in WI. The election officials end up with the ballot for processing

regardless of how it is sent.

[UpInArms]

5. The PATRIOT act of 2001

Stopped local post offices from routing local mail directly ... mail now has to be sent to a “sorting facility “ where every piece of mail is photographed.

This is how the track every piece of mail for whatever “nefarious” reason from a sender to a recipient (tracking the bombs from the MAGA bomber, etc)

It is terribly inconvenient for fast delivery of local to local

[Dem2theMax]

9. Makes me sick to read this.

I'm in blue California. I actually felt fine dropping my ballot in the mailbox. But I'm also tracking the ballot.

I live in a rural area and I don't have a car, so that was pretty much my only option.

If I lived in a red state, there is no way in the world I would put my ballot in the mailbox. I would have to beg someone to drive me to the registrar's office to hand it over.

[renate]

11. how absolutely INSANE is it that this is happening in "the greatest democracy in the world"

We are thisclose to being a banana republic dictatorship. That this and other things are being done on someone's deliberately and corruptly anti-democratic orders--not by accident, not by oversight, not by carelessness, not by ineptitude, but deliberately, in the United States of America in the year 2020--and that these orders are actually being carried out, is terrifying.

[luvtheGWN]

25. The USA is NOT the greatest democracy in the world.

I hate to tell you this, but your "democracy" is a sham. As one of my former friends (a Repub) firmly stated to me, many times, the USA is a republic.

The Electoral College puts an end to any idea of a "democracy" and makes it a sham.

And it's ridiculous that states have control over federal elections. And it's also ridiculous ( and very sad) that your Federal Elections Commission is toothless.

Having said all that, my fingers and toes are crossed that you can oust the criminal in your White House, and that he moves into a federal prison cell that he so rightly deserves.

[renate]

37. boy howdy, don't we all know it!

It never has been a democracy! Not just the electoral college but stuff like literacy tests and all the other forms of vote suppression. It drives me crazy the way so many Americans think we're some shining city on a hill. We're not and never have been, except for rich white folks.

Thank you for crossing all your fingers and toes--we need every bit of help we can get!

[Rebl2]

14. Sorry

but that’s how it works guys. If you live in a suburb it then goes to a processing center usually in a larger city. Mail gets post marked when they are run through the mail processing machines, then sent back out to the suburbs. That’s the way it’s worked for many, many years now. They don’t have processing machines in most suburban post offices because these machines are extremely large and most post offices are small and can’t accommodate them.

[Wanderlust988]

16. I think ballots are different

At least that's what our Clerk said. He said this has never happened before. I think with election ballots, they didn't have to be sorted in a bigger city.

[Rebl2]

23. Okay

Well my husband worked for the post office for 35 years until a couple of years ago and he said they processed ballots during elections. We live in a suburb of KCMO and he worked at the mail processing center (known as the big house cause it felt like a prison) fixing the machines and the computers on those machines. He saw those ballots every election. Guess it’s different in small towns.

[Kaleva]

35. Asked my wife, who worked as a postal delivery person. she said ballots were treated like other mail

and it's been that way for years.

[yaesu]

19. usps is fine here in W MI, the only problem was the ballot I received had to be replaced because

they left one name off, just got my new ballot today.

[Chichiri]

26. Do you want a broke post office?

Because that's how you get a broke post office: ballots not being processed through the plant and therefore the county not being charged for them.

Speaking as one of the guys on the ground, the guys on the ground are stressed enough without being yelled at this month.

[moondust]

27. Agree.

I've recently had some mail apparently delivered days late that resulted in late payment fees. I'd love to charge USPS for the late fees but the payments were not sent via traceable registered mail so they probably wouldn't assume responsibility. A search on Google shows late fees due to slow mail delivery may be a common problem. Is this another twist on a Trump/DeJoy scam?

[quitnesset]

28. Typical

In our small rural PO it takes about five business days for something mailed from our post office to an address in the same post office. The mail is sent about 90 miles north, then 100 miles south, the. 60 miles north, and then 30 miles east... it makes no sense.

[Hoyt]

29. FedEx, the PO, etc., have been doing it for decades. It's not some conspiracy.

[Evolve Dammit]

30. Drop them, in person to a secure collection spot if you can.

[Kaleva]

31. That's the way it has worked where I live in Michigan for a number of years now.

Someone in my town dropping off a ballot at the local PO to be delivered to the village clerk will see that ballot travel some distance over a few day time just to arrive at the village clerk's PO box located a few feet from the where the sender dropped off the mail-in ballot.

Same thing will happen to birthday cards, invitations or any other mail a person in town mails to anyone else in town.

[zaj]

32. This is likely quite common...

Tucson lost our postal sorting center in 2014, and all our mail goes to Phoenix before coming back here. Obviously that was pre-PostalSabotage and Pre-Trump.

[WyattKansas]

33. Since Donald Dumbass Deluxe kept parroting that 'they were throwing away Republican ballots'...

You can be sure Donald Dumbass Deluxe told DeJoy to systematically siphon off ballots in Democratic Districts and have them thrown in the dumpster. After all, the sleazy fraud PROJECTS everything he is guilty of doing.

[tavernier]

38. Done for tracking purposes.

[cwydro]

40. I have lived in small towns. Mail usually goes to the main distribution center.

For example, if one wants to send a letter or bill or whatever from Wingate, NC to the neighboring city of Monroe...it is going to go to Charlotte, NC first. Wingate to Monroe is less than 10 miles. Charlotte is much further, but it’s the main distribution center.

It’s been this way forever that I can remember. I lived in Boone, NC for years. My letters to friends in close by small towns went to Charlotte first.

[efhmc]

47. Even PO box items go to distribution centers and then back to local PO

for delivery.

[Bobstandard]

41. To be fair...

The mail from my town goes to a nearby city where it is processed using those high speed sorting machines, then it comes back the same night or early am the next day and then goes out so that if I mailed a letter to the guy across the street he still gets it the very next day

[jaxexpat]

42. I wouldn't worry too much about it......

I mean it's not as if there's an opposing political party using every dirty trick they've been grooming for the last 55 years with the help of a sitting president who wouldn't recognize a legitimate ballot if it were in his ham berder because he's too spellbound by his personal justice department aided by his own personal attorney general and his custom made postmaster general doing everything he can do, short of a prison sentence, to demolish the capability of the USPS to get a postcard delivered across the street in timely fashion. Nothing to worry about at all. I mean it's not as if the 2016 election was in the bag and got stolen at the last minute by a misspeaking FBI chief. Nothing like that could happen again could it?

[Generic Brad]

43. Report from Philadelphia

My daughter and her boyfriend requested their ballots at the same time. They live at the same address. He received his ballot today. She did not. When she checked on the status of her ballot on-line she was angered to see it was marked as "undeliverable - no such address".

I should note that her boyfriend has a very generic, white sounding name. My daughter's first name would be best classified as ethnic sounding.

After calming her down, I convinced her to do early voting at the city courthouse during a weekday. She has a plan and will get her vote counted come hell or high water.

[csziggy]

44. She should immediately check with the Elections Office

If her voter registration is marked as invalid due to her ballot being returned, she may have a problem.

Here, you can check your voter registration and correct your address online, so she should see if that is possible for her over this weekend.

If the ballot return does cause a problem, she should have enough time to get it fixed before early voting is over or at worst, before Election Day.

[Generic Brad]

45. She confirmed her registration before ordering a ballot

They picked the wrong young woman to suppress. She is beyond pissed.

[csziggy]

46. Yes, but they can use the returned ballot as an excuse

Good on her - she will be able to handle it!

[Generic Brad]

48. She just signed up to become a poll worker

That is how pissed off she was! She just told me if people her age give up easily, this will never end. And she will damn well do her bit to make it end.

[csziggy]

49. Wonderful! The country needs more poll workers

Most of the ones I see are retired age or older. My sister does it every election and she is over seventy. She tried to talk me into it, but I know I do not have the endurance to work all day especially around people.

It's great that young people are getting involved - that will help democracy survive for generations to come, I hope.