GAO flags USPS delivery gaps with midterm mail-in ballots weeks away
A Government Accountability Office report found the U.S. Postal Service is falling short of even its own reduced performance benchmarks, weeks before millions of voters will rely on USPS to return midterm ballots. The…
Key takeaways
- A GAO report found the U.S. Postal Service is failing to meet even its own reduced performance benchmarks weeks before millions of voters return midterm mail-in ballots.
- About 24,000 post offices—those sitting more than 50 miles from a regional processing and delivery center—stand to lose afternoon mail collection under current plans, disproportionately affecting rural communities.
- A 2021 shift of some transportation from air to ground added one to two days to expected delivery windows for certain first-class mail.
- The GAO recommended the postmaster general lay out a concrete improvement plan in the agency's 2027 strategic plan update, and USPS agreed to the recommendation.
- A USPS spokesperson said the agency is well positioned to finish the fiscal year strong and expects to meet its higher first-class mail on-time performance target.
A Government Accountability Office report found the U.S. Postal Service is falling short of even its own reduced performance benchmarks, weeks before millions of voters will rely on USPS to return midterm ballots. The agency shifted some transportation from air to ground in 2021, adding one to two days to expected delivery windows for certain first-class mail. The GAO found about 24,000 post offices stand to lose afternoon mail collection under current plans, a change that falls disproportionately on rural communities.
The numbers in the report
The 24,000 figure applies to post offices that sit more than 50 miles from a regional processing and delivery center. Steve Hutkins, editor of Save the Post Office, told Axios that delivery times have slowed four times since 2010. "The goalposts have moved several times," he said. His framing of the trade-off is direct: if you cut costs to balance the books, you cut services, and services means delivery speed or whether a post office exists in your town at all. "Whenever the post office closes," he added, "for rural communities, that takes the heart out of the place."
Mark Jamison, a former postmaster in a small North Carolina town, offered a structural diagnosis. He said decades of treating the Postal Service as a profit-oriented corporate entity have damaged the infrastructure, and that in the age of e-commerce USPS functions as "a hedge against the delivery monopolies of UPS, FedEx, and Amazon." Residents of one Phoenix neighborhood told Axios they sometimes went days or weeks without mail, missing bills, checks, and time-sensitive correspondence. The USPS is structured to fund itself through postage and other revenue while still providing universal service to nearly every U.S. address, including areas where doing so runs at a loss.
What to watch
The Trump administration has pushed to overhaul the country's mail-in ballot system, adding a policy dimension to the operational picture as the midterms approach. A USPS whistleblower has separately warned that a new ballot handling system could fail.
A USPS spokesperson said the agency is well positioned to close the fiscal year strong and expects to meet its higher first-class mail on-time performance target, entering fiscal year 2027 with momentum for the holiday mailing and shipping season.
The GAO recommended the postmaster general lay out a concrete improvement plan in the agency's 2027 strategic plan update. USPS agreed to that recommendation. The specifics of that plan, or the absence of them, are the next confirmable step.