If you depend on postmarks when casting your poll, submitting your taxes or paying payments, a brand new US Postal Service rule makes it clear that you ought to plan forward.
Postmarks – which embrace a date stamp from the USPS – can provide proof {that a} piece of mail, corresponding to a poll, was turned in by a authorized deadline.
But the new rule, which went into impact final week, clarifies {that a} postmark does not “necessarily” replicate the date the USPS “first accepted possession” of the piece of mail.
That’s as a result of most postmarks are utilized at regional mail-processing hubs, and the USPS has undertaken a major overhaul that features eliminating a number of each day journeys between submit workplace places and these amenities.
As a outcome, individuals in some elements of the nation – significantly in rural areas far-off from regional processing hubs – can expertise delays between dropping off their mail and having it postmarked.
The Postal Service stated it has not modified its postmarking practices however issued the new rule to clarify to the public what a postmark denotes.
Voting by mail grew extra widespread throughout the pandemic and made up about 30% of the turnout in the 2024 election, based on federal data. That’s down from a excessive of about 43% in 2020. Currently, 14 states – together with the presidential battleground of Nevada – settle for common mailed ballots acquired after Election Day, offered they’re postmarked on or earlier than that day, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
The adjustments at the Postal Service – and the potential impression on mail ballots – come in opposition to the backdrop of President Donald Trump’s drive to sharply curtail mail-in voting. He has railed in opposition to the follow as rife with fraud, regardless of no proof of widespread wrongdoing.
An executive order the president signed in March sought to mandate adjustments to mail-in balloting and other election practices, however has been blocked, partly, by the courts. In 2025, 4 states – Kansas, North Dakota, Ohio and Utah – eradicated their grace durations for counting mailed ballots acquired after Election Day.
The final destiny of late-arriving ballots doubtless rests with the US Supreme Court. The justices will decide this term whether or not states may rely mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day, in a Republican-led case. It originated with a problem to a Mississippi legislation enacted throughout the pandemic that enables ballots to be acquired as much as 5 days after the election.
This yr, election officers have sought to alert voters to their considerations about late-arriving mail ballots.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta cited the USPS adjustments to exhort voters who dwell greater than 50 miles away from USPS mail-processing hubs to forged their ballots early forward of a November particular election on redistricting. Similarly, in Oregon – the first state to undertake a common vote-by-mail system – Secretary of State Tobias Read warned voters that ballots that have been mailed in after October 30 would possibly not obtain a postmark in time for the November 4 election.
Tess Seger, a spokesperson for Read, stated Oregon officers “plan to continue to raise awareness about this issue” forward of subsequent yr’s elections.
The Postal Service has lengthy beneficial that voters mail their accomplished ballots at the least every week earlier than they have to be acquired by their native election places of work.
In an announcement despatched to NCS this week, the Postal Service stated that any buyer who desires to make sure that a chunk of mail receives a postmark can take it to a Post Office retail counter and request a guide postmark. Customers even have the choice of utilizing licensed or registered mail, for a charge.