Your ballot or other mail may not get postmarked by USPS the day it's dropped off

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: NPR

October 23, 2025 5:01 AM ET


Changes at the U.S. Postal Service are forcing people who rely on postmarks when voting, filing taxes or mailing legal documents to be extra careful when cutting it close to deadlines. Postmarks include the dates that USPS stamps on envelopes, and those are often used to determine whether a piece of first-class mail was sent on time.

But the Postal Service has proposed revising its mailing standards to say that postmark date "does not inherently or necessarily align" with the date that a mail piece was first accepted by a letter carrier or dropped off at a post office or collection box. "In other words, the date on a machine-applied postmark may reflect the date on which the mailpiece was first accepted by the Postal Service, but that is not definitively the case," USPS said in a recent Federal Register notice.

USPS hasn't changed how it applies postmarks. What has changed is that, as the mail agency continues its controversial reorganization plan, more parts of the country may not get their first-class mail processed until the day after it's collected by USPS.

That's largely because the agency has reduced how often it picks up mail in certain areas more than 50 miles away from one of its new regional processing and distribution centers. The change, USPS says, "saves money, reduces carbon emissions, and benefits processing operations" at a time when fewer people and businesses are sending first-class mail compared to decades ago.

Read more: https://www.npr.org/2025/10/23/nx-s1-5582370/mail-in-ballot-postmark