With expanded hours and extra delivery, usps is absolutely ready to handle millions of ballots ahead of midterm elections

Election preparations underway

The head of the U.S. Postal Service said Thursday that the agency is fully prepared to process millions of mail-in ballots ahead of the November 3 midterm elections. The contests will determine control of Congress, as well as outcomes in other major races.

USPS announced a package of special election measures earlier this month. These include longer retail hours, expedited handling, additional delivery runs and dedicated ballot pickups. The measures are set to begin October 24. Steiner said they are intended to speed completed ballots to election offices during the final stretch, including local processing bypasses when needed to get ballots there on time.

Court blocks ballot rule

The preparations follow a September 14 Supreme Court decision that declined to let USPS enforce a rule targeting mail-in ballots. The decision was a setback to President Donald Trump’s effort to restrict voting by mail, and the agency later confirmed it would not apply the rule.

The policy followed a March executive order from Trump seeking tighter controls on mail voting. Under the blocked regulation, states would have had to provide USPS with lists of mail-ballot recipients and use agency-approved outbound and return envelopes with unique barcodes. USPS would have been able to reject ballots that did not meet the requirements or were linked to voters absent from state lists.

Mail voting figures

During the 2024 presidential election, USPS handled 99.2 million ballots sent to and from voters. About 30% of all votes were cast by mail that November, compared with 46% in 2020. The figures provide context for the scale of the postal service’s election work as it prepares for the midterms.