New U.S. Postal Service rules on postmarks could have a significant impact on rural voters and mail-in ballot processing in Illinois and across the country.
Under the new system, mail will not receive a postmark on the day it is submitted to the local post office. Instead, the postmark will be applied only after the mail is transported to a separate regional processing facility, potentially resulting in postmarks dated one or more days after the actual submission date.
Michael Chameides, communications and policy director for the nonprofit Rural Democracy Initiative, said the changes will impact about 70% of ZIP codes nationwide.
"People in rural communities are going to be hit twice," he said. "Our mail is going to take longer to get there. Then the documents that need a postmark are going to show the wrong date. And this is going to lead to a whole lot of people having their votes discounted, because of this policy choice."
More than 1 million Illinois residents voted by mail in the 2024 presidential election. Chameides said people mailing time-sensitive documents should allow for extra delivery time or ask for a manual postmark or a certificate of mailing at the local post office.
In 2024, more than 100,000 mail-in ballots nationwide were rejected for missing the deadline. Chameides said that number will soar under the new policy and disenfranchise voters. He argued that additional planned post office service cuts and closures in rural communities only further compound matters.
"They’re really reducing the footprint of the Postal Service for communities that are farther away from urban centers," he said. "And really for everyone in the county, but particularly for rural people, the Postal Service is a really important function. It delivers everything from prescription drugs to mail-in ballots. And these are services that we really should be bolstering in really, the opposite direction."
Chameides said the change is part of a larger agenda of the Trump administration to create voting barriers and reduce services for rural communities. The USPS cites saving money and improving efficiency as reasons for the policy change.
