SACRAMENTO\u00a0\u2014\u00a0As Democratic leaders in California challenge President Trump\u2019s latest effort to restrict the use of mail-in ballots, they also must grapple with a troubling development in the last election.<\/p>\n
A significant number of mail-in ballots arrived too late to be counted in the Nov. 4 special election for Proposition 50, Gov. Gavin Newsom\u2019s successful measure to reconfigure the state\u2019s congressional districts, according to state data. <\/p>\n
Ballots came in late at an average rate four times higher than that of the 2024 election, with rural counties seeing some of the biggest increases, according to a Times review.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomething changed,\u201d said Melvin E. Levey, who heads the Merced County Registrar of Voters. \u201cWe don\u2019t like seeing late ballots and if someone has made the effort to vote, we want to count it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Merced saw almost a sevenfold increase in late-arriving mail ballots in the November election compared with the year before.<\/p>\n
Vote-by-mail ballots are considered late if they are not postmarked on or ahead of election day or do not arrive within seven days of election day.<\/p>\n
The issue appears to be linked to the U.S. Postal Service, which last year reduced the number of trips to pick up mail at post offices in mostly rural areas. Election officials warned before Nov. 4 that the Postal Service changes could delay the postmarking of ballots and lead to votes not being counted. <\/p>\n
During the Nov. 4 election in California, an average of 8 out of every 1,000 vote-by-mail ballots were rejected by counties because they arrived too late, according to Secretary of State data. In the 2024 general election, which included the presidential race, an average of 2 of every 1,000 vote-by-mail ballots were rejected for being late.<\/p>\n
In Kern County, for example, 3,303 mail-in ballots \u2014 or 1.95% of returned mail-in ballots \u2014 were not counted in the 2025 special election because they arrived too late. In 2024, that number was 332 \u2014 or 0.14%. And in Riverside County, 5,831 ballots \u2014 or 0.95% of those mailed in \u2014 were deemed too late to count, more than double the number of late ballots rejected in 2024.<\/p>\n
Postal Service spokesperson Cathy Purcell recommended that voters mail their ballot a week in advance of when it must be received by election officials to ensure it arrives on time. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou should never be mailing your ballot on election day,\u201d Purcell told The Times.<\/p>\n
Before last\u2019s year\u2019s special election, California Secretary of State Shirley Weber issued<\/a> a similar warning about the delays. Anyone dropping off their ballot at a post office on election day should get it postmarked at the counter, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t want anyone to just toss it into the mailbox as we have been able to do in the past and have it counted,\u201d she said. \u201cThe Postal Service has said that they may not be counted in certain areas.\u201d<\/p>\n California voter data expert Paul Mitchell expressed astonishment about the Postal Service\u2019s guidance. <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve had six, eight years of elections where people were feeling confident about mailing in their ballot,\u201d said Mitchell, vice president of the voter data firm Political Data Inc. \u201cNow the USPS is saying they have to mail it in a week early.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat is a dramatic change that can disenfranchise voters who are just following the same pattern that they\u2019ve used in prior elections,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Democrats have been defending the vote-by-mail system in the face of Republican attacks. Trump recently signed an executive order to impose federal restrictions on mail-in ballots and, without evidence, has long criticized mail-in ballots as a source of fraud and a factor in his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.<\/p>\n The Nov. 4 special election on Proposition 50 was the Democrats\u2019 attempt to counter Trump\u2019s push for Republican-led states, most notably Texas, to redraw their electoral maps to keep Democrats from gaining control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2026 midterms and upending his agenda. The ballot measure overwhelmingly passed.<\/p>\n Nearly 89% of votes in the Nov. 4 election were vote-by-mail ballots, according to Weber\u2019s office. In addition to Proposition 50, tax measures were also on the ballots in some counties. <\/p>\n Postal Service changes<\/p>\n About a month before the Nov. 4 election, Weber and Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta held a news conference to encourage California voters to vote early because of service changes at the U.S. Postal Service.<\/p>\n Bonta told reporters that voters living 50 or more miles from six large mail processing centers in urban areas who mailed their ballots on election day would not have those ballots postmarked in time. The centers are in Los Angeles, Bell Gardens, San Diego, Santa Clarita, Richmond and West Sacramento, according to Bonta\u2019s office.<\/p>\n The changes at the U.S. Postal Service are part of a 10-year plan that kicked off several years ago aimed at improving services and reducing costs at the independent federal agency. <\/p>\n In the 17 counties that are mostly or entirely within the 50-mile distance from the mail facilities, the average rate of late ballots doubled in the November 2025 election compared with the election the year before \u2014 from 2.5 per 1,000 ballots received in 2024 to 5.6 per 1,000 in 2025.<\/p>\n But in counties that are entirely or mostly outside of the 50-mile radius, the average rate of late ballots quadrupled \u2014 from 2 per 1,000 ballots received in 2024 to 9.3 per 1,000 in 2025, state election records show.<\/p>\n Similar complaints about late ballots because of the mail changes have been reported in other states, including in Snohomish County, Wash., according to the New York Times. <\/a> <\/p>\n The U.S. Postal Services told the Times that there are \u201cany number of factors\u201d that may affect the timeliness of mail. <\/p>\n \u201cThe Postal Service has successfully delivered America\u2019s election mail, and we are confident that we will do so again this year,\u201d spokesperson Nikolaj Hagen said. \u201cWe rely on long-standing, robust and tested policies and procedures, which have proven successful in the secure and timely delivery of election mail.\u201d<\/p>\n Hagen added that \u201cadjustments to our transportation operations will result in some mailpieces not arriving at our originating processing facilities on the same day that they are mailed.\u201d<\/p>\n Postmarks are generally applied at those processing facilities, Hagen said, so the postmark date may not reflect the date the mail was collected by a letter carrier, dropped off at a retail location, or placed in a collection box.<\/p>\n While the U.S. Postal Service uses postmarking as an internal tool<\/a> to track the place and date the mail was accepted, outside entities also use the postmarks for their own purposes, including the Internal Revenue Service, which requires federal tax returns to be mailed by April 15. <\/p>\n