Did not receive my ballot today; USPS Informed Delivery said I did.
October 9, 2020 1:16 PM   Subscribe

USPS Informed Delivery said I would receive my Election 2020 ballot today, along with another mailpiece for my roommate. My roommate's mailpiece arrived; my ballot did not. It wasn't in the mailbox. What steps should I take?

Voting is very important to me, especially with the heightened importance of this election. I'm not sure what happened. The USPS website has an option to mark the mailpiece as not delivered; however, I'm not sure if it could've been a delay and I'd get the ballot tomorrow; in that case, best to wait? Or go ahead and report it now?

My home is in a subdivision with shared mailbox slots (each townhome has its own mailbox slot, though), so it's possible the ballot could've been delivered to the wrong mailbox slot, but that doesn't make much sense, considering my roommate's mailpiece arrived just fine, and had the same address. My name isn't written in the "label" in the mailbox (two other roommates are, and two former roommates), but I've gotten other mail in my name since I moved here about two months ago, as well as my roommate whose name also isn't listed in the mailbox, so that also shouldn't be an issue.

What should I do, o'beautiful and wise Green?
posted by thoughtful_analyst to Law & Government (14 answers total)
 
Wait until tomorrow and check the mail again then.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 1:21 PM on October 9, 2020 [15 favorites]


Yeah, wait a couple days as informed delivery says you should. Anecdotally, this has happened to me with other mail and it's turned out fine.

Also anecdotally, I didn't get my mailed ballot one year and a phone call to the elections office sorted it out quickly (they had changed my address back to a previous one), so after a couple days, give them a call and figure out what to do. In Oregon you can vote in person and cancel your mailed ballot if it comes to that.
posted by momus_window at 1:25 PM on October 9, 2020 [3 favorites]


Response by poster: Thanks, looks like waiting a few days is the best route to take. It's just that all other mailpiece has always arrived on time, and on the day it's showing on Informed Delivery. This is the first time a mailpiece has been late, IME.

If I don't get my ballot, would you recommend reporting it to USPS, then to the city?
posted by thoughtful_analyst at 1:27 PM on October 9, 2020


It's not uncommon for us to get a piece of mail the day after it was in our "informed delivery" e-mail - happened Monday, in fact. I've never had mail not show up (at least in terms of 'real' mail, as opposed to flyers and ads), but they're certainly been late. If I'm not mistaken it's not your local post office that gathers those images, but your regional mail processing center, so a number of things would go wrong or be delayed in between.

I would wait a day or two, it'll probably turn up.
posted by SquidLips at 1:27 PM on October 9, 2020 [3 favorites]


If your ballot doesn't arrive after a few days, call your county elections office and they can send you a new ballot. Reporting to USPS won't accomplish much I don't think -- you'll need to request a new ballot in any case so might as well just do that straightaway.
posted by mekily at 2:03 PM on October 9, 2020 [5 favorites]


While 99% of the time Informed Delivery is right, I've had 2 pieces of mail this year that arrived a couple days after ID said they would [and did NOT show up on ID for the day the arrived, BTW, so I guess it only gets included in that email once?]

Of course its more concerning when its a ballot, but it does happen sometimes.
posted by thefoxgod at 2:12 PM on October 9, 2020 [1 favorite]


I am in Chicago. For the last several weeks Informed Delivery has had a 1 day lag time, including reporting when I'd get my ballot and when I actually received it. It has been one day late like clockwork for all my mail.

Echoing others to give it a couple days before requesting a new ballot from your election commission.
posted by phunniemee at 2:17 PM on October 9, 2020 [1 favorite]


Take a deep breath. :) Go write your name on the label, or replace it if there's no room, because there may be special rules about ballot delivery. But, still, wait a couple days. Voting is very important to me too, and I'm here to tell you that there is plenty of time. If you don't get your ballot by Monday's mail, contact your municipal clerk and request a replacement. Report it to USPS if you like, but the clerk won't care one way or the other. They'll invalidate the label for the first one so that it can't be misappropriated, wherever it might be. Once you get an active ballot (ask them how you'll be able to tell the difference, if you do end up needing a 2nd), you might look into whether there's somewhere you can drop it off in-person in a distanced manner instead of mailing it back. But even if you do mail it, it'll be fine: there are weeks yet to go.
posted by teremala at 2:17 PM on October 9, 2020


Seconding waiting until tomorrow, or in light of reduced weekend service (on the backend), Monday -- the overtime cuts come into play here, along with some stricter cutoffs from when a letter carrier transitions from sorting mail into their route to going out the door.
posted by Sunburnt at 2:39 PM on October 9, 2020 [1 favorite]


Are you on good terms with you neighbors? You might go knock on their doors just to make sure your ballot didn't end up at the wrong address. This happens a couple of times a year to me and my neighbors where I get mostly my mail and one piece that belongs next door. I just go and drop it off for them when that happens.
posted by brookeb at 2:52 PM on October 9, 2020


I would echo the multiple bits of advice here about contacting your elections office. Even if their advice is "wait a couple of days first", (1) they are the ones who most need to know if any problems are cropping up and (2) they want you to be able to vote. They might in fact have a preferred process, which is going to be the one you want to follow.
posted by bixfrankonis at 5:35 PM on October 9, 2020 [1 favorite]


I always take Informed Delivery as a guide, telling me these items will arrive very soon, if not today. They can't be showing you when it's actually delivered, since the email comes hours and hours before the earliest possible delivery in my neighborhood. At any rate, no need to panic.
posted by lhauser at 5:46 PM on October 9, 2020


I have had informed delivery be late and tracked delivery be outright wrong. It isn't worth fretting over just yet, give it a day.

If it does appear to have been lost, you can mark it as in received in informed delivery - which doesn't seem to do anything - and you can flag it as lost mail to USPS, which does make it to your local post office, usually resulting in a phone call to you and a double check. It's far from infallible, but they are happy to talk to you.

Given what it is you, should also contact the county in a couple of days. Mail is not 100% guaranteed and I'm sure they have contingency plans.
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 12:24 AM on October 10, 2020


Response by poster: Update: checked today, still no ballot. I'll wait until Wednesday (to give it time because it's a holiday weekend, so Tuesday needs time to catch up, etc.) and if still no go, I'll contact the local election office.
posted by thoughtful_analyst at 6:46 PM on October 10, 2020 [1 favorite]


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