By Dee Anne Finken, Communications Portfolio Director, LWV of Washington

This fall, many voters heeded the guidance from their local Leagues, county auditors and the U.S. Postal Service to mail their ballots at least a week before Election Day. The intent was for ballots to reach elections offices early enough to be counted. 

But League members in Kittitas County aren’t convinced that the guidance was shared widely enough, and they question whether the seven-day guideline to reach the Election Office was sufficient. Among their reasons: anecdotal evidence of other mail being delayed, reduction in the number of postal sorting centers statewide, and the need for mail to be consolidated before it is shipped to sorting centers. 

So how long does it take a letter to get from point A to point B via U.S. mail? 

Members of the Kittitas County League have launched an audit of local postal systems to find out. They’re asking League members statewide to send test mail to Board Vice President Charli Sorenson and include the date and time the letter or postcard is sent. Sorenson is recording sorting center/postmark and arrival date. 

“We hope to use the data to inform our election recommendations and probably to change our election graphics, like those we used in 2024, when we were suggesting something like only four days.” 

Sorenson said she and others are concerned that many voters don’t know that U.S. mail isn’t postmarked until it is sorted at a processing center that is sometimes hours away. She also noted that the USPS has reduced mail pick-up at some local post offices from twice a day to once.