Voting by mail is still fraught with problems. The two leading national organizations of election officials have just written the U.S. Postal Service demanding immediate action to avoid confusion and chaos with mail-in ballots.

“We implore you to take immediate and tangible corrective action to address the ongoing performance issues with USPS election mail service,” wrote the National Association of State Election Directors and the National Association of Secretaries of State. Mail-in ballots accounted for 43% of the electorate in 2020, a 20-percentage point increase from 2016.

This letter follows a July report from the USPS’s own Inspector General, which warned that its audit of primaries in 13 states found that 2.99% of mail-in ballots reached voters too late and 1.83% were returned to election offices after their legal deadlines. Its list of horror stories included the discovery that “local management at one facility stated they were not aware primary Election Day was that week.”

Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab is “extremely concerned” that in the August primary, 2% of ballots sent by mail were not counted. “The Pony Express is more efficient at this point,” said Schwab.

Registration lists are notoriously chock full of ineligible, duplicate, fictional, and deceased voters, a fact easily exploited to commit fraud. Ballots cast by mail can become the object of intimidation and vote-buying schemes.

Even a 1 or 2% mail-in error rate due to fraud or mishandling of ballots could easily swing the election one way or the other.

Scary that the fate of our country could rest on the competence of the Postal Service.