Archive links: https://web.archive.org/web/20251229233408/https://bsky.app/profile/goldengateblond.bsky.social/post/3mb5t23bf3k23 or https://archive.is/uvuWB
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.
Also if you live in a state where you’re allowed to photograph your ballot consider doing so to have proof you voted a certain way.
Note that as a counterpoint the federal register website claims they are just clarifying language to improve public understanding: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/08/12/2025-15266/postmarks-and-postal-possession
I didn’t check that document very closely yet.
This will affect rural mail the most. Every bit helps.
People forget sorting facilities are mostly in cities. While some upper managers might be sociopaths who worship a narcissist king, regular people working for post offices aren’t going to be going along with the bullshit.
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 .
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.
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!
If you’re in line you’re guaranteed a vote
Without water and bathrooms
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.
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.
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.
How would it be subject to abuse? Somewhat subject to luck I’d agree but abuse would require intent. Deliveries are somewhat predictable, by law 95% of letters must arrive within 3 days, 99% within 4 days. Mail-in ballots “should” be delivered within 2 days.
If it must arrive regardless of circumstances you can generally just send it via fax (except for mail-in ballots of course).
Though this has also lead to some issues. Because the 2025 election was a snap election there was significantly less time for mail-in ballots to be sent. This caused issues for many expats living outside Germany and as a result, at least a couple thousand votes from 200,000 registered expats were probably discarded.
If a black* person hands in a letter to guarantee that it’s received on time, and the worker is racist and believes it a tax form, they could just leave it for a few days/weeks before processing to guarantee that it’s late.
*Replace with any marginalised group or person. It could even include you.
how would it be subject to abuse
are you really struggling to understand how it could be subject to abuse lol maybe the person in charge of the post office lives in an area they know would vote a certain way so they give everyone a day off and the mail arrives too late to be counted
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.
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.
got any resources you’d recommend, for someone trying to “catch up” on Illinois politics in particular?
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.
Have the same thing out here in California.
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.
I wonder what % of ballots are going to get thrown out.
All of them if by mail.
Welp, I’ll be forwarding this to the people I know that send in their votes by mail, to make sure they get the ballots mailed in within a few days of getting them.
More to the point, I wonder how many MAGA farts will see their ballots tossed because of this? MOST of the older conservative voters I know use mail in ballots.
Who’s got the popcorn?
And then if Dems win, guess who they’ll say cheated.
