Elections officials and secretaries of state around the country have sounded an alarm that the postal service might not be equipped to handle mail ballots this year. But Maryland officials say there’s little cause for concern here.
“Marylanders can have confidence in the mail-in ballot program,” said Jared DeMarinis, the state elections administrator. “We’ve mitigated as many variables as possible.”
Elections officials this week are beginning to mail out 578,000 ballots and send another 91,000 ballots via the internet to voters for this fall’s election, a number that will rise as more voters opt for mail ballots as the Nov. 5 election approaches. The deadline to request a mail ballot is Oct. 29.
In Maryland, ballots submitted by mail must be postmarked by Election Day at the latest, and they must be in the hands of elections officials by 10 days after Election Day, when the final vote tallies are conducted.
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That long time frame — one of the more generous in the nation — means that there’s little chance that a ballot dropped in the mail on time won’t arrive by the cutoff, DeMarinis said.
“By having it at 10 days, we’re mitigating that issue to allow more time for the post office to deliver mail to us,” he said.
Voters who receive ballots in the mail have another option to return their ballots that doesn’t rely on the postal service: ballot drop boxes.
There are more than 280 drop boxes stationed around the state, many of them at in-person early voting locations and elections offices. The drop boxes are monitored and emptied regularly during the election season, and are accessible until polls close on Election Day.
“It’s just one less variable and you know it’s going directly to the election officials,” DeMarinis said.
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Local elections officials in Maryland work closely with postal officials to ensure smooth coordination during election season, said Erin Perrone, the elections director for Carroll County who heads the Maryland Association of Election Officials.
In Carroll County, for example, they set up a system for elections officials to pick up ballots from the postal service each morning. Leaders from both the elections office and the post office have each other’s cell phone numbers and call and text regularly.
“It’s about local board officials having the relationship with the local postmaster,” she said.
Voting by mail has become increasingly popular in Maryland since the coronavirus pandemic began in 2020. That year, a primary election and a special congressional election were held almost entirely via mail ballots as a health and safety measure.
Though all options for voting returned, many voters stuck with voting by mail. The state has also since changed the law to allow voters to opt into a permanent list to receive mail ballots, eliminating the need to enter a request ahead of every election.
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In the Democratic and Republican primary elections this past May, more than 550,000 Marylanders had ballots mailed to them, and another 84,000 received them via web delivery, fax or in person.
The vote-by-mail contingent of voters made up about 39% of all ballots cast in the primaries. Traditional, in-person election day voting remained the most popular way to vote, at 43% of ballots cast.
“It is a method that is here to stay,” DeMarinis said of mail-in voting.

Concerns raised by officials in other states are not unfounded; the U.S. Postal Service itself acknowledged in a recent internal audit that during this year’s primary elections, not all postal employees properly followed policies and procedures for handling election and political mail.
Officials from dozens of states — but not Maryland — signed a letter earlier this month warning the postal service: “We implore you to take immediate and tangible corrective action to address the ongoing performance issues with USPS election mail service.”
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But U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has expressed confidence the postal service is ready to handle the influx of mail-in ballots and said he would work with election officials on their concerns.
In a letter sent earlier this week, DeJoy assured state officials that the postal service is committed to the expeditious and timely delivery of ballots for the upcoming election and recalled that during the 2020 general election 99.9% of election mail was delivered within seven days.
“Our 650,000 employees are deeply committed to the secure and timely delivery of the nation’s Election mail and to ensuring that we fulfill our important role in proving a secure, efficient and effective way for citizens to participate when policymakers decide to use mail as part of their elections,” DeJoy wrote.
The Baltimore region has experienced postal woes before, though, causing some to be cautious. In 2020, postal customers reported late deliveries, missing mail and long lines at the post office in attempts to track down letters and packages.
An audit published in late 2021 found attendance problems, job vacancies and broken equipment contributed to a productivity downturn at the Baltimore mail processing plant during the pandemic. Baltimore had the second-most complaints for missing mail in the nation, according to the audit.
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Those issues have been remedied, according to a postal service spokesperson assigned to Maryland; staffing is back up to an “authorized level” and equipment has been upgraded.
“The facility is fully prepared to handle an ‘influx of ballots,’” spokesperson Mark Wahl said in a statement. Election mail accounts for a fraction of the facility’s total volume, he said.
Voters who are worried about getting their ballots in the right hands in time can either use the drop boxes or head to a post office to send off their ballot, Carroll County’s Perrone advised.
“I always tell voters that if they’re waiting until Election Day to mail their ballot, they better go into the post office and have the clerk stamp that ballot so that we know it was mailed before 8 p.m. on Election Day,” she said.
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