People tweeting stuff. We allow tweets from anyone.
RULES:
If you want to vote by mail please do so as soon as you can and consider dropping it off at the counter where they will postmark it right away.
Even then you have to request it. The term you need to ask for is "hand canceling". The USPS worker will take a handheld ink stamp and mark over the postage stamp with the received date. That letter is now "processed" as received by the post office.
They've cheated before, they'll do it again. It's like playing whack-a-mole trying to get around it.
This is also going to wreak havoc with documents sent for any purpose that may be litigated, or legal in nature.
Yeah, but they never really care about consequences besides the one they're aiming for.
The most short-sighted administration in American history.
i suspect the gop/TRUMP wants to use the courts to determine which and what gets thrown out, its going to be chaos.
If you don't know when it is going to be stamped, then you cannot possibly plan accordingly. Trying to be early to get around the unreliable time frame isn't planning accordingly, it is just guessing.
Especially when they're sure to find ways to demolish post office processing times around election seasons specifically to kill mailed in ballots.
This isn't relevant, even when we've been slammed local offices separate the ballots and bring them to a hub or county seat if it's within a week of an election. Postal workers actually care about doing their jobs.
Majorly affects anyone who mails their tax forms
Right now, first class mail to homes in the Chicago area is taking two WEEKS to arrive due to holiday increases. I don't think it'd be this bad at tax or voting deadlines, but it's good to know what kind of variability you can expect, especially with all of the changes made to the US postal service since 2017.
Weeks? Fucking how? I work at a post office and today our OIC was running around with her hair on fire because the mail was three days late on one route.
It's Illinois, so there are a lot of politics in play that aren't usually an issue in most of the US. If someone in charge of my post office snubbed the wrong person at a work event, it wouldn't be surprising if the snub-ee did things like moving money around to stop an order of new mail trucks from being deployed to our routes. (That's not a democrat or republican thing, it's an Illinois political machine thing.)
However, bigger political issues come into play, too. When DeJoy first took over, people in parts of my House district weren't getting mail at all. He was removing mail sorting machines from post offices, for cryin' out loud. Apartment buildings had package dumps that the residents had to comb through to hopefully find their stuff, if it hadn't been stolen. Letters and packages were getting delayed or lost and being reported as delivered. (I've had at least one package get reported as delivered that showed up in my mailbox a week later, but a two-day delay between report and delivery is much more common.) People getting government checks and medication in the mail were left waiting for things that might or might not show up, no indicators of where they were, and nobody to ask for a status update. Just "item delivered at mailbox/front door" and nothing.
Ten years ago, it was $0.49 to mail a first class letter that would be delivered, pretty reliably, in about three days. Now that services have been "brought more into line with existing services" like FedEx and UPS, it's $0.78 and shows up whenever.
This will make it easier for nefarious parties to just hold onto mail as long as possible before stamping it.
Really, please just vote in person this time if you can.
Unless you'll be intimidated by National Guard or ICE, in which case just vote as soon as possible.
Really just vote as soon as possible anyway. We all know there's going to be illegal interference in the election. The question is to what extent and what kind. Do what you can to predict and avoid problems.
Some of the voter suppression involved having a single voting place for a large area, and closing it at 5pm even though there was a very long line of people still waiting to vote.
If you can't guarantee your postal vote will be counted, and you can't guarantee that you'll get into a voting booth, what do you do?
I agree with the sentiment of voting however you can. It's one of the few ways that people get to decide how the country is run. I'm just angry that this right is being gradually taken away.
You can often early vote in person at your county clerk's office!
This isn't technically new, mail doesn't get a postmark stamp unless it's collected over the retail counter by clerks, and usually only on regular stamped mail (non-metered). If you had your mail in your mailbox with the flag up and is picked up by your carrier, it goes directly on the truck to the regional sorting facility and is processed and stamped there. Unless your mail comes directly from a regional sorting facility, it is not stamped at your local office if not handed in over the counter.
However, with election ballots, we are instructed to have them separate from other outgoing mail, regardless of when it's picked up to be kept in office and delivered to the town hall/voting location the following day. This is the case with all 3 offices I've worked at, in 2 different regional areas. Only exception is if they're absentee ballots for other towns.
Definitely drop a ballot off directly if you're cutting it close to election day to make absolutely sure it's counted in time though, and obviously, VOTE.
Please vote irl if feasible .
I had a whole comment that got eaten up in an error (and a Lemmy client that doesn't fail gracefully, I really should be moving off of Sync). But maybe that'll be an opportunity to give a more concise summary of what's going on.
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/08/12/2025-15266/postmarks-and-postal-possession
This USPS notice is basically correct. The meaning of postmarks isn't changing: it's a mark that definitely proves that mail was in the Postal Service's possession on that date. The absence of a mark doesn't mean the absence of possession, and the date of a mark does not foreclose the possibility that the mail was in the Postal Service's possession on an earlier date.
It does note there are operational changes where they're now taking fewer trips in certain low volume zip codes, and that expands the number of places where postmarks are being applied on the next USPS operational day: usually the next day, but a second day if the next day is Sunday or a holiday, or a third day when the next day is a Sunday and the day after that is a Monday holiday.
Someone mailing something may still request a same-day postmark from the postal facility they're dropping it off at, but that's not helpful if they're already past business hours or using an unattended outgoing mail box.
Most importantly, though, it only has a small potential to affect voting.
Yeah, I saw this getting spread around and facepalmed, I'm a carrier and it's basically not a change -- just logistics changes that can have an impact +/- a day. When first class mail went off the next day standard a few years ago is when this really changed, and it was about business efficiency and prioritizing packages. I also facepalm when I see ballots in outgoing the day before an election, but we run those separate to the county seat or a closer hub office to get them delivered on time.
Transcription:
A post from bluesky stating "As of 12/24/25, USPS changed policy on when they postmark mail. Mail dropped off is no longer guaranteed a same-day postmark. Tax returns & other time-sensitive items are now stamped when they reach a regional processing center, which may be days later. Plan deadlines accordingly to avoid penalties." Another user commented on the post "this seems specifically designed to break mail-in voting (where deadlines are defined by postmark)".
this seems specifically designed to break mail-in voting
This is specifically for doing that. Processing centers will be understaffed in heavily Democratic areas, Republican strongholds will have mail that magically gets a stamp fifteen nanoseconds later. Republicans can literally not win without resorting to cheating.
They don't even need to understaff them, that shit is all automated these days. Just manufacture a breakdown and voila.
They keep changing as many laws and regulations as possible so come next election, no poor person will be able to vote at all anymore. And if that isn't enough to make them win, they will buy as many officials as possible to make sure the count is "right". And if that isn't enough they will contest every Democrat win in every state. I'm sure the list goes on.
This is also making the mail less reliable. The mail is a vital piece of the functioning of the country but they want to privatize it
Jesus Christ.. More bullshit conservative nonsense?? Come on.
Interesting that this is even relevant in the US.
Here in Germany the only relevant metric is whether a document has arrived at the recipient before any given deadline, from ballots to legal documents. It is considered your responsibility to ensure sending anything sufficiently early.
Sure but you gotta remember, your system is run by Germans, we just have fucking Americans in charge of everything over here!
Wow. That's subject to abuse though unless there is a maintained predictable transit time. Maintaining a timestamp for the handoff is a critical tracking metric.
Here in Colorado we vote by mail, in person or, relevant to this development, we are allowed to drop a ballot into an actual ballot container. It's like a mailbox but only unlocked during elections.
Great for suburbanites like me but in rural districts might be a bit of a hike.
Election jurisdictions that accept ballots postmarked by Election Day but received after will face challenges, as the postmark date may reflect processing date rather than the date the ballot entered USPS possession.
They'll just rely on delayed processing, or actively delay the processing.
Anything to reduce democracy.
everyone here is talking about elections, I'm thinking about taxes and time-sensitive forms. Hell, the company I work at accepts time-sensitive forms, we're now gonna have to discuss this in a meeting to see how we're gonna handle forms that come by mail after our deadline.
Like dejoy would do something like that …. Oh wait. Yes. Yes he would do something like that to appease daddy Trump and president musk.
Maybe the left should do some of this vote manipulation bullshit this election. Get a group and burn voting boxes in deep red areas like they did to us. Groups of armed antifa at every polling place in Texas.
You know. Democracy as these fucks see it.
It's not a secret. Just nobody in any leadership position seems willing/able to do anything about it
I predict the regional processing centres in blue states will have technical issues for weeks before and after the voting period.
The funny thing is they think Democrats are more using the mailing system. I'm pretty sure it's all of the older Republicans and Republicans in general that use the mail-in system far more. This is only going to hurt their base even more.
Most states offer early voting as well, up to 2 weeks before election day. I always recommend that as the BEST option. It allows you to vote in person and it's almost always empty. Find a time convenient for you, go in, get your ballot, vote, leave. 5 minute process max.
