Postal Service Sprints to Deliver the Last Ballots by Tuesday - and in Duval County a Ballot Must Be Received by 7 P.M., Not Just Mailed
USPS has delivered tens of millions of ballots and a record 4.2 billion pieces of political mail in two months and is running extra staffing, repeated facility sweeps and special ballot lines into Election Day. Florida's rule is the one that matters here: a Duval ballot counts only if the Supervisor of Elections has it by 7 p.m. Tuesday.
The mail is in a sprint. From longer hours and extra staffing to special lines in its branches, the U.S. Postal Service is taking an array of special actions to make sure mail-in ballots for Tuesday's midterm elections are counted, Reuters reported in a file opened and read directly by the desk this run. In the last two months USPS has delivered tens of millions of ballots and a record 4.2 billion pieces of political marketing mail - up more than 300 million pieces over the 2024 election cycle, Reuters reported.
The final-days machinery is specific: some branches may extend hours and establish a 'Ballot Postmark Only' line or a drive-through ballot option; the service is running expedited handling, extra deliveries and special pickups, with daily and sometimes multiple sweeps of all postal facilities to find remaining ballots; and on Sunday it brought on extra staff to collect, postmark and process mail, Reuters reported. A special portal, electionmail.org, gives local officials real-time help with mail issues. Board of Governors chair Amber McReynolds said workers are, in her words quoted by Reuters, 'delivering democracy.'
The pressure has a legal history: President Donald Trump ordered the agency to write rules that would bar it from delivering ballots if states did not agree to turn over lists of eligible voters, and the Supreme Court blocked Trump and USPS from enforcing those rules in September, Reuters reported. In 2024 the service delivered 99.2 million ballots to and from voters, and about 30% of votes were cast by mail in that presidential election, down from 46% in 2020.
For a Jacksonville voter holding a ballot on Monday, the governing rule is Florida's, and it is a receipt deadline, not a postmark deadline: a voted vote-by-mail ballot must be received by the Duval County Supervisor of Elections by Election Day, November 3, at 7 p.m. Eastern Time, the Supervisor's official dates page states - a postmark does not make a late ballot count. Overseas voters have a 10-day extension for ballots returned by mail in a general election, to November 13, the office states. A ballot still in hand on Monday is safest delivered to the Supervisor's office in person before 7 p.m. Tuesday.
