Mail-in Failure Rates Make Strong Case for SAVE America Act
Virginia Citizens who live out of state and have to rely on mail-in balloting as their only means of voting are statistically at risk of their ballots arriving too late, according to my latest analysis of delivery rates.
Mail-in voters in foreign, military/overseas, and out-of-state categories have substantially higher ballot-completion failure rates compared to no-excuse mail-in ballots (27–37% vs. ~20% for Virginia addresses).
Statistics in an already over-burdened U.S. Postal Service show this. The biggest reason is volume. The more no-excuse mail-in ballots that are in transit, the higher the risk that mail-ins won’t be processed by mail-delivery centers in time.
The SAVE America Act would level the playing field for out-of-state voters by returning states to pre-Covid requirements for absentee by-mail voting.
In Virginia, the average is one in four mail-in ballots not processed in time, as my research of delivery rates from 2020 to 2023 has shown.
The U.S.P.S. has been navigating new procedures that call into question whether it will be able to post mark a mail-in ballot by the legally required date — no later than Election Day, because of the volumes of mail it is already handling.
According to the U.S.P.S. in a June update:
”While we are not changing our postmarking practices, we have made adjustments to our transportation operations that will result in some mail pieces not arriving at our originating processing facilities on the same day that they are mailed.
“This means that the date on the postmarks applied at our processing facilities will not necessarily match the date on which the customer’s mail piece was collected by a letter carrier or dropped off at a retail location.”
Mail-in voters will have to request a hand-stamp in person, if that is available.
The SAVE America Act would ensure by-mail ballots are prioritized for those with a disability and not able to vote in person, all military and dependents, and citizens who travel outside of Virginia during the voting period, for example.
ANALYSIS
I analyzed by-mail ballot success using official data from Virginia’s 2024 General Election, and studied how the federal Uniformed and Overseas Citizen Access to Voting Act (UOCAVA) was applied.
In Virginia, just over 92% of the 635,573 Virginians who voted By Mail in 2024 did so out of convenience, or the “no-excuse” method of requesting a mail-in ballot.
The other 8% were primarily cast by overseas, out-of-state voters who must use mail-in balloting, as well as citizens who are disabled.
I analyzed summary data on these ballots, and also checked the numbers with an AI engine. The results were consistent. Voters in the foreign, military/overseas, and out-of-state categories have substantially higher failure rates (27–37%) compared to no-excuse mail-in ballots (~20%) from Virginia addresses.
METHODOLOGY
By-Mail voters were sorted into four categories for tracking:
--1. Uniformed (military and military dependents)
This voting group population lives more than 25 miles from their home of record, (their legal residence). When stationed away from home, Uniformed military and dependents have no option but to vote By Mail.
--2. Overseas Citizens
By definition, these voters reside outside of the United States or its territories. Their overseas addresses are assumed to be serviced by foreign postal services. When we look at this group of voters, we notice that many “Overseas” are, in fact, not actually overseas and actually stateside.
These voters are either mischaracterized, or perhaps voting when they are not citizens of Virginia. Some may never have resided in Virginia.
--3. Temporary (Federal Only)
This category should represent Virginia citizens who work for the federal government and are temporarily out of the Commonwealth on duty.
--4. No-excuse mail-in ballots:
This group (defined here as non-UOCAVA) consists of voters who cast an absentee mail-in ballot as a convenience.
For our analysis, we grouped By Mail ballots by area, and when ballots were mailed, using the following headers: Virginia, nearby States, Assumed Foreign (addresses which do not have a US State or Territory in the Mailing address field).
Foreign addresses dominate non-Virginia volume and failures — likely due to international mail delays, address-formatting issues, or UOCAVA complications.
Military / Overseas / Temp voters showed higher uncounted/deleted rates across most state groups, consistent with known challenges for these categories.
The huge volume of “no-excuse” absentee by-mail voters places a huge burden on the voting system itself, not to mention the carriers. It drives up voting costs (it is much more expensive to vote by mail than to vote in person).
Voters who must vote by mail to have their ballots received on time, and counted when returned, are facing difficult processing rates.
The routing of mail-in ballots through the U.S.P.S. Regional Processing Centers comes into play in our analysis. Any ballots routed through these centers adds more processing time to the overall voting cycle of receiving and returning a mail-in ballot.
Some states have multiple regional processing centers (RPCs). Some states have none. In Virginia, where I reside, multiple RPCs handle ballots. One is within Virginia. Several are out of state.
A reasonable estimate could be that each ballot transiting through the mail adds anywhere between $10 to $50 in extra processing costs.
In Virginia, the volume in 2024 was the following, according to official records of the Department of Elections: 635,573 voted By Mail during the 45-day early-voting period.
Of these, 589,780 were non-UOCAVA voters, and another 449,033 voted from mailing addresses within Virginia.
Why does this matter? The voters (UOCAVA and disabled, for example) who must vote by mail “compete” for attention with the carriers.
They are less likely to receive voter assistance. They are less likely to get an “assist” from ballot trackers and ballot harvesters who now play larger roles in the chain of custody of mail-in ballots in Virginia.
In effect, voters who have no recourse but to vote by mail are not on an equal playing field. The odds are stacked against their mail-in ballot being handled in time.
The SAVE America Act levels the playing field by restricting mail-in voting to those with a disability, military, or who travel, and gives them a better chance their ballot will be received in time for tabulation.
The SAVE America Act returns mail-in balloting to the traditional exceptions prior to 2020, the Covid election year. It is a matter of fairness, a level playing field, equal access to voting, and a voter rights issue. #
Rick Naigle is board member and a Senior Data Analyst for EPEC. He can provide in-person briefings about the research for this report, and other balloting audits he conducts. Contact us at EPEC.info or reply to this email to find out more.