USPS Delivery Delay Tracking

EVANSVILLE, Ind. (WFIE) – It all started with voting. We then learned of many other problems associated with slow mail delivery in Evansville and the surrounding tri-state area.

Throughout October, we heard stories of long waits at the US Postal Service.

We told you about the concerns of several county clerks concerned that absentee ballots had not reached voters after two and a half weeks.

(Previous story: Clerks point to post office for severe ballot delays)

Since we published this story, we’ve heard from more people about problems with mail, ranging from drug delivery to car registration.

(Previous story: USPS mail delays extend beyond just ballots)

The delays appear to be due to changes in USPS operations. In a statement, we were told that since early May, Evansville mail has been delivered to Louisville for processing.

In 2020, the USPS implemented its Delivering for America plan, aimed at “modernizing the postal network.” This plan includes a hub system so mail from the tri-state area is delivered to Louisville.

After hearing so many stories about mail delays, we decided to check the delivery times ourselves.

Since you can’t track a simple letter, we put the Apple AirTag in an envelope addressed to Station 14 News and dropped it in a USPS mailbox.

It was October 17th. It was delivered back to us on October 28th – 11 days later – but it arrived in an unusual way.

Our CCTV cameras at the station show the postman arriving just before 10:00am on Monday morning and delivering our daily mail.

Then, just after 1:00 p.m., the mailman returned a second time, just to deliver one thing—a letter with our AirTag on it.

Our office manager was there when the letter arrived the second time. The postman told her that he had just been given this letter and told to deliver it.

Our chief engineer usually handles mail delivery at the stations. He says it’s very rare for USPS to deliver mail to us twice in one day.

We weren’t shy about sending out and tracking AirTags. We produced several stories on air and online and mailed them out in an envelope with our logo on the outside.

Perhaps our situation was unique: only 11 days passed between sending the letter and delivery. Others we’ve heard about haven’t been so lucky, like Diana Mahrenholz.

“They sent me an anniversary card on June 10,” Marenholz said. “He didn’t get to Dubuque, Iowa until September 14th. The total is 96 days.”

Stephen Bentley says he had to find another way to pay his plumber after the check he mailed arrived a month later.

“There’s a lot of people’s money coming through the mail,” Bentley said. “If the item is here in the city, it should be shipped to the city rather than shipped to Louisville, Kentucky, and then shipped back.”

Money, medicine and especially ballots. Everything was entrusted to the hands of the postal service.

Their new way of working takes longer to deliver, but according to their plan, this method is here to stay.

We checked back in with several county clerks who reported slow delivery of absentee ballots. They say the problem seems to have improved over the past few weeks.

On October 21, the USPS began taking “extraordinary measures” to ensure ballots were delivered on time.

USPS officials declined our request for an interview, instead sending us a series of statements about ballot delivery and its central delivery system. You can watch them in our previous stories.

They sent out another statement Monday regarding absentee voting. You can read it below:

With eight days remaining until Election Day, Tuesday, November 5, the U.S. Postal Service encourages voters who choose to vote by mail to do so as soon as possible.

As we expect an increase in the number of mail-in ballots in the coming days, Postal Service officials are working to ensure that the ballot of every person who chooses to vote by mail is delivered quickly and securely. As in past elections, the Postal Service is ready to deliver your ballot on time. But don’t delay. If you decide to vote by mail, send your letter early because every day counts.

We continue to recommend that it is a good common sense measure for voters who choose to mail in their ballots that they do so before Election Day and at least a week before their election office is expected to receive them. If your ballot deadline is Election Day, the Postal Service recommends mailing it in by Tuesday (October 29).

The Postal Service remains fully prepared to successfully deliver mail-in ballots to voters who choose to use us to vote. And to be clear, even for runoff ballots that enter our system after Tuesday, we will continue to implement our “emergency measures” that are designed to speed up the delivery of mail ballots in the final weeks of the election season.

By the upcoming 2024 general election, the Postal Service expects service performance to be similar to that demonstrated in the 2020 general election*:

• 99.89 percent of ballots sent by voters to election officials were delivered within a week (7 days).
• 97.9 percent of ballots mailed by voters to election officials were delivered within three days, and 99.7 percent were delivered within five days.
• On average, the Postal Service delivered ballots from election officials to voters in 2.1 days and ballots from voters to election workers in 1.6 days.

*2020 General Election Statistics

For the 2024 general elections, the national postal network is operating efficiently without any major disruptions. The quality of service throughout the country is good. In the first three weeks of October, postal voting results were strong:

• 99.9 percent of ballots (combined: outgoing from election commissions to voters and incoming from voters to election workers) were delivered within a week (7 days).
• On average, the Postal Service delivered outgoing ballots (to voters) in 2.0 days.
• 98.3 Percentage of incoming ballots (from voters to election authorities) were delivered within 3 days.
• On average, the Postal Service delivered incoming ballots (from voters to election officials) in 1 day.

Emergency measures are in place (began October 21)

In addition to the processes and procedures specific to election mail that the Postal Service employs throughout the year, as in previous general elections, the Postal Service is taking extraordinary measures in the final weeks of the election season to quickly move incoming ballots on or near the same day. elections and/or by state deadline.

The emergency measures began on Monday, October 21, and will continue across the country until Election Day (Tuesday, November 5) and the last day in each state for election officials to accept completed mail-in ballots on time.

The extraordinary measures are designed to speed up and improve the delivery of ballots once the Postal Service can identify the mail as a ballot.

The Postal Service’s emergency measures include, but are not limited to:

• Additional deliveries and fees;
• Special pickups;
• Specialized sorting plans at processing plants to expedite delivery to election offices; And
• Local processing and transportation of ballots.

These measures are consistent with the Postal Service’s efforts in past elections.

Ready to deliver your ballots

The Postal Service has the operational capacity to deliver ballots nationwide during the final week of the election. In 2020, voting mail accounted for just 0.11 percent of the Postal Service’s total mail volume.

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