The supervisor of elections in one of Florida’s most populous counties is urging voters there to cast ballots at early voting stations or to deliver their mail ballots in person, rather than relying on the U.S. Postal Service, because of what he called “serious” delays with mail ballot delivery.
Joe Scott, the elections supervisor in Broward County, Fla., said his office had received dozens of reports from voters in recent weeks complaining that their completed ballots weren’t being delivered to his office in a timely manner. That process, Mr. Scott said, should take “two days tops,” but some voters told his office that it was taking over two weeks.
Voters generally cannot track their ballots in the mail, Mr. Scott said, but his office notifies voters when it receives their ballots. For ballots to be counted in Florida, they must be received by 7 p.m. on Election Day.
“People are asking, ‘Why is it taking so long for my ballot to get back?’” Mr. Scott said in a phone interview on Saturday. “At this point, even if the mail was running normal — which it’s not — it’s way too late to put your ballot in the mail.”
Mr. Scott added that the problem was likely more serious than what voters have told his office. “For every person that’s saying this,” Mr. Scott said, “there are 50 or 100 who aren’t.”
Mr. Scott, an elected Democrat, said he started growing concerned about the Postal Service’s handling of mail ballots in Broward County late last month, when the bulk of mail ballots were sent out to voters there who requested them. The county, home to about 1.1 million active voters, is often a swing county in Florida — including, famously, during the 2000 presidential election.
“I started getting calls from community leaders saying everyone got ballots except people in Hallandale Beach,” Mr. Scott said, referring to a city in southern Broward County that has more than 25,000 eligible voters. “When I looked it up, they were right.”
Mr. Scott said that he then alerted a Postal Service liaison, who said the agency would look into the problem, but that nothing more came of it. He said a vast majority of mail ballots for the city were subject to significant delivery delays.
“The Postal Service is dramatically degraded from what it used to be,” Mr. Scott said. “It is different. It is worse.”
The Postal Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
