The day you mail something may no longer count as the actual mailing date, John.
Legally speaking, the date stamped on your mail is when it counts as being sent, from your bills to your taxes to your ballot. For decades, that's been stamped the day you gave it to the United States Postal Service (USPS), whether you handed it to your mail carrier, left it in a mailbox, or dropped it at the local post office.
USPS has now reversed that practice. Your mail will be stamped the day it hits a regional processing facility, not your local post office. That could be a day, or more, later than when you handed your mail over.
What does this mean? If you live in a state with a mail-in ballot grace period -- something most states still have, even though MAGA is trying to end those -- your ballot still counts if it was postmarked by Election Day and received in the grace period after Election Day. In this case, however, a ballot mailed on Election Day may not be postmarked as Election Day, making your ballot automatically invalid even though you followed the rule of law and the postmark date is out of your control.
Our first priority is making sure every voter understands this change and how it can impact them -- not just in terms of vote-by-mail, but their bills, their taxes, responses to companies, you name it. What we all think is the deadline may not be the deadline and that's a huge deal that's being under-reported by the media.
We also need to make sure every mail-in voter across the country knows how to get their ballot in on time, especially those most vulnerable to this change, like the elderly, rural Americans who live far from USPS regional facilities, our military service members, and young people who are voting by mail away from home.
John, it's a tough time of year and we know we've been asking for a lot. Will you pitch in $25 or whatever you can today and help us spread the word about these changes so we can protect mail-in ballots? >>
