Ballots discounted for late postmarks surged in Washington and Oregon
after Postal Service changes
[September 09, 2026]
By GENE JOHNSON
SEATTLE (AP) — The number of ballots rejected for late postmarks has
soared in the vote-by-mail states of Washington and Oregon, according to
newly released data highlighting concerns about recent changes in U.S.
Postal Service operations ahead of this fall's pivotal midterm election.
The struggling agency has been consolidating its operations with an
emphasis on regional hubs in an effort to save billions of dollars. Some
U.S. senators and election officials for months have been warning that
the changes could delay the application of postmarks to ballots — even
if they're mailed on or before Election Day. That would prevent
otherwise valid votes from counting.
That prediction is being borne out, they say, with thousands of voters
having their ballots rejected during this year's primaries.
“More Oregonians had their voices go unheard just because their ballots
couldn’t make it through the mail in time,” Oregon Secretary of State
Tobias Read told a news conference Tuesday, referring to the state's
primary in May. “That is unacceptable.”
The operational changes at the Postal Service are compounding worries
about the future of voting by mail, especially in some Western states
where the method is universal and widely popular. Trump has repeatedly
attacked mail-in voting, falsely claiming it's riddled with fraud,
despite having voted by mail himself.
Over the weekend, his administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court to
overturn a judge’s ruling blocking his executive order that seeks to
restrict mail-in voting, a method used by nearly one-third of voters in
the U.S.
States rush to install more drop boxes
Read said he is asking lawmakers for emergency funding to install 20 new
ballot drop boxes in areas where they're not otherwise easily accessible
to voters. Washington's secretary of state this year has spent about
$300,000 to reimburse counties for the addition of 21 drop boxes.
In two rural Washington counties — both of which have reliably backed
President Donald Trump — ballots rejected for late postmarks represented
more than 4% of all ballots cast in last month's primary. Democratic
Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington called it ironic that postal changes
might disenfranchise some of Trump's most stable supporters.
“The Postal Service is disenfranchising voters across the United States
with policies that are leaving them with a ballot that was cast, but
never counted,” she said.
In December, the Postal Service finalized a rule clarifying that
postmarks don’t necessarily reflect the date the agency first took
possession of a piece of mail, but rather the day it was handled in one
of its processing centers. Those processing centers are increasingly
likely to be farther from certain communities due to recent
consolidations.
And since last year, USPS policy has dictated that mail is transported
once a day — rather than twice — from post offices or collection boxes
that are more than 50 miles (80.47 kilometers) from a postal
distribution center.
USPS urges voters to mail ballots early
In a written statement, the Postal Service acknowledged that changes in
how it transports mail could result in postmarking delays. It noted that
anyone who wants to ensure their ballots are postmarked on time can go
into a post office and ask for it to be stamped manually, free of
charge.
“Our consistent message to voters who choose to vote by mail is to mail
early” — at least one week before ballots are due, the statement said.
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Election worker Wendy Wimer looks through vote-by-mail ballots for
the presidential primary election, March 12, 2024, at the Clark
County Elections Office in Vancouver, Wash. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane,
File)
Some 7,314 ballots that arrived in the mail during Oregon’s weeklong
grace period for this year’s May primary were not counted because
they were postmarked after Election Day — a rejection rate of 13%,
up from 9.5% two years earlier, Read said.
In Washington, the number of late-postmarked ballots first jumped
last year, after postal changes had taken effect. Officials
responded by urging people to get their ballots in early and by
installing more drop boxes. Drop box use did increase in this year's
primary, but the number of late-postmarked ballots was still a
problem: 20,267 — up from 16,131 in 2024.
The data paralleled numbers in California, where during this year’s
June primary about 93,500 voters had their ballots rejected because
they were postmarked or arrived too late to be counted.
Rural counties heavily affected
In some rural Washington counties where voters often return ballots
by mail because drop boxes are farther away, the data was most
pronounced. In Stevens County in Washington’s northeastern corner,
the rate at which mailed ballots were rejected for late postmarks
quadrupled.
Stevens County Auditor Lori Larsen said that on Aug. 7, three days
after the primary and during the state's grace period for ballots to
arrive, her office received a haul of 547 ballots with late
postmarks. There were so many that she initially thought the mail
must have been interrupted by wildfires in the region, but when she
looked at the ZIP codes they originated from, she realized that
wasn't the case.
“To me that is a number that suggests that many, if not all, of
those folks thought they were timely delivering their ballot into
USPS custody,” Larsen said in a phone interview.
Her office is now rushing to double the number of secure ballot drop
boxes in the county from five to 10.
In conservative Yakima County, where nearly 4.4% of all ballots cast
in the primary were rejected for late postmarks, local mail is now
sent to a processing center in Spokane — about 200 miles (320 km)
away — before being returned to Yakima, said county Auditor Charles
Ross.
He said that while elections officials try to treat all voters
equally, the postal changes could make it more likely that those in
rural areas won't have their vote counted.
“If you’re in one of these rural areas like where we live and you
put your ballot in the post office box three days before the
election, and if you live in Seattle or Spokane and you put your
ballot in the same blue box three days before the election — there’s
a high likelihood that those two ballots are going to be treated
differently,” Ross said.
___
Associated Press writer Michael R. Blood in Los Angeles contributed
to this report.
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