Instructed to separate ballots from outgoing mail?

[u/Emergency-Bread8340]

The only instruction I have gotten about handling ballots just came in the late afternoon on a scanner message. It said "please make sure we are not putting any local ballots in the outgoing mail. Please hand them to a supervisor or clerk to keep them separated from outgoing mail."

This seems very strange and potentially problematic. What do y'all think?

[u/User_3971]

No. This was standard practice for a decade or more because the county would send someone to pick the ballots up nightly during elections. Often when the machines weren't done running through the loose mail dumped by the thousands from hampers.

Eventually it was also because one county chose a horrible format for their ballots (visible address on the back? wtf?) and they had to be manually separated so the machines don't return them to sender (the voter), since the process is largely automated.

[u/Throwawaylikeme90 → u/User_3971]

Correct. No ballots in rejects or outgoing until human review more or less. 

A person should always be appropriately directing a failed ballot sort. 

[u/Havingfun922 → u/User_3971]

This happened in an adjacent county to me with the addresses on the reverse. We had to hold them out to be processed separately.

Last thing we need is to give any anti-vote by mail people any ammunition.

[u/User_3971 → u/Havingfun922]

Fortunately the one that got through (why the carrier delivered it again I have no clue) was in time to be corrected & delivered to the county and still be counted. The PM about had a stroke even after I had to explain the machines are set up for standard address formatting and having an address on the back is extremely stupid and not a USPS caused problem. We still get blamed for it though.

[u/Comadivine11]

We do this but usually only the day or two before election day and the county officials pick them up to make sure they get counted on time.

[u/beebs44]

Normal as we get toward election

[u/Beefcake2008]

That happens every election

[u/dmljr → u/Beefcake2008]

Yeah, but not this early. Normally they only start separating when it’s less than a week away.

[u/Beefcake2008 → u/dmljr]

It’s two weeks away and plants are further away now

[u/djankylosaur]

Like others said, normal as we close in on the elections. Especially as it comes down to the wire. We've had instructions to return ballots to the station before we are done in order to get them outgoing asap.

[u/GregoryStevens909]

In my installation 99.9 percent of ballots collected are local mail. We'd always have a separate tub for ballots next to our APC for outgoing flats. That way a clerk can do the BRM processing on them and distribute them for next day delivery to the court house. Sending them to the P&DC in outgoing mail only delays delivery.

[u/chpr1jp]

I have been working for many elections, but this year’s campaign junk has been really depressing.

[u/Even_Acanthisitta237]

You're describe an extraordinary measure as described in this memo. However, these measures aren't authorized to begin until 10/26/26.