The USPS wants your help to improve ballot processing.

Neither rain nor snow will stop the United States Postal Service from delivering mail, but a poorly designed ballot envelope can.

Have you ever wondered how USPS can handle around 2.3 billion pieces of political mail each election?* This is possible only through highly sophisticated automation that can scan a massive number of envelopes per second. Yet, automation is only as smart as the instructions it’s given.

So when ballot envelopes are not designed in a way the USPS machine has been programmed to recognize, errors happen.

USPS has an engineering team that trains automation, working hard to make sure each of the billion pieces of mail is processed correctly.

Our friend Alfred works on this team (find his contact info below) and is one of the people responsible for this automation process. He is eager to improve ballots processing and we can help him.

Here are two ways how:

  1. Report issues you experience to https://electionmail.org/report
  2. Get on top of potential automation errors by sending sample ballot packages to USPS.

CCD team members holding up a USPS envelope template
CCD team members Sean, Emma, and Grace showing off their USPS envelope measurement templates. Ask your local MDA about getting one of your own.

Reporting errors helps USPS improve automation

If you don’t know about https://electionmail.org/report as a resource, the website is the easiest and fastest way to get information about problems with ballots directly to USPS. Each problem report goes directly to the Election Mail team at USPS, is read, taken seriously, and resolved as quickly as possible.

Send samples of your ballot materials to USPS

The more variations the USPS automation has a chance to see the better it gets at recognizing different designs as election mail and the better it is at getting vote-by-mail ballots to and from voters.

Alfred and the team at USPS have an ongoing program to train the system and tweak the parameters of how the mail processing automation works. Your sample ballot packages will help them stay on top of this year’s election. Recognizing patterns based on real-time data from election envelopes and sample ballot packages is a huge help in getting ahead of any errors.

What materials should I send?

Send USPS 25-50 samples of your ballot package with everything inside, just as you will mail it: ballots, inserts, and return envelopes. Everything stays in the engineering center, but has to be realistic. Mark everything sample or draft, and spoil the ballot.

  • Use real addresses and Intelligent Mail barcodes (IMb): Use both the real election office address and residential address for the voter. A real name isn’t necessary, but it has to be a real address and USPS does need the correct IMb (those little barcodes on the bottom right corner of the envelope).
  • Include any election management scan codes you will have on the bulk ballot mailings.
  • Don’t put postage on the envelope.

What if this year’s ballot packages are not ready?

If you don’t have all the materials for this year ready, you can use an old ballot with the number of pages you expect to use this year and similar stand-ins for any inserts. As long as the weight and dimensions are the same, USPS will be able to test and improve its processing based on the provided samples.

What’s the deadline to send in ballots?

There is no deadline! Of course, USPS would rather have ballot material earlier than later, but sample materials can always help train their automation. The more envelopes they have the better. Even if you send them the materials already in the mail for voters, it’s still worth it for the next election. If you ran your primary and have samples left over, you can send these too. If they see a problem with already sent envelopes, the team can let the mail processing centers know to watch out for potential future issues.

Where should the ballot packages be sent?

Send your package of samples and a note about how to get in touch with you to:

Alfred Makonnen

USPS Engineering – SST

8403 Lee Highway

Merrifield, VA 22082-8101

As you plan for this year’s ballot mailing, don’t forget to review the envelopes with your regional USPS Mail Design Analyst, so you get direct feedback on the design. Read more about how to work with MDAs in our workbook.

Further resources:

  • Toolkit: scaling up voting by mail: If you’re designing materials beyond the envelope, this toolkit includes templates and best practices for designing every document of the vote-by-mail journey, including ballot request forms, envelope designs, voter information and instructions, and more.

*2.3 billion is the number from 2017 when Daniel Bentley, the Election Mail Program manager gave an update on the partnership between USPS and the election community to the EAC Standards Board.