Richmond General Registrar Keith Balmer advised residents in February to use one of three drop boxes in the city or vote in person at an early voting location or a polling site on Election Day rather than mail their ballots for the March presidential primary due to mail delays. Balmer said he will heavily encourage drop boxes for the election.
During the November election, the Postal Service would “employ a robust and proven process to ensure proper handling and delivery of all Election Mail, including ballots.” The USPS reported that 98.96% of voter-sent ballots were delivered to election officials within three days, 99.82% within five days, and 99.93% within seven days during the November 2022 midterm elections.
The Postal Service says it is attempting to fix the difficulties over the past few months, but an inspector general report released this month underscored the intricacy of the Richmond concerns.
The USPS spent $25 million transforming a facility near Richmond into a key hub for mail from Rocky Mount, North Carolina, more than 100 miles away. Starting in October, Richmond residents reported major postal disruptions due to the new system. According to inspector general figures, 66% of mail there arrived on time in the final three months of 2023, the worst rate in the country.
The report described poorly supervised staff, including workers idly waiting for the mail and one mail handler sleeping on a parked forklift, as well as sloppy mail handling, including packages scattered across the facility floor, mail that fell under equipment, and 2-month-old mail found in a truck yard container.
Driver shortages and idle cars waiting for mail to be sorted caused delays due to poorly planned vehicle routes that were continually modified. Some vehicles carried only a portion of their mail. The survey found eightfold more extra excursions to the facility and 30% more late trips.
The Postal Service anticipated the new facility would cut expenses by $14 million in 2024, but it paid $5 million in unlawful overtime in 2023 and had $3 million in dubious transportation expenditures, the study stated.
Postal delays affected veteran colon cancer screening findings. In late January, the Richmond Veterans Affairs Medical Center informed Congress that 870 at-home colon cancer tests used to determine additional screening were invalid due to delayed delivery, with some tests taking months.
Jamie Bosket, president of the Virginia Museum of History and Culture in Richmond, said the delays delayed hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations. He claimed the museum received less mail donations in October, just as it always does at year-end. In December, the museum got 10 donor letters instead of the usual hundreds.
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