I had a whole comment that got eaten up in an error (and a Lemmy client that doesn’t fail gracefully, I really should be moving off of Sync). But maybe that’ll be an opportunity to give a more concise summary of what’s going on.

federalregister.gov/…/postmarks-and-postal-posses…

This USPS notice is basically correct. The meaning of postmarks isn’t changing: it’s a mark that definitely proves that mail was in the Postal Service’s possession on that date. The absence of a mark doesn’t mean the absence of possession, and the date of a mark does not foreclose the possibility that the mail was in the Postal Service’s possession on an earlier date.

It does note there are operational changes where they’re now taking fewer trips in certain low volume zip codes, and that expands the number of places where postmarks are being applied on the next USPS operational day: usually the next day, but a second day if the next day is Sunday or a holiday, or a third day when the next day is a Sunday and the day after that is a Monday holiday.

Someone mailing something may still request a same-day postmark from the postal facility they’re dropping it off at, but that’s not helpful if they’re already past business hours or using an unattended outgoing mail box.

Most importantly, though, it only has a small potential to affect voting.

• Most states require ballots to be received by election day, and postmark day doesn’t matter.
• Even in states that look to postmarks, they still have a deadline to be received by a particular grace period, so you’ll want to get the mail sent as early as possible anyway.
• The Supreme Court just heard a case, and will rule by June, on whether states are even allowed to follow the postmark date instead of the received by date.
• Election Day is on a Tuesday not near a holiday. So the operational changes will only add a single day to the postmark date, in the low population areas that don’t deal with a lot of mail, for people who don’t request a same day postmark from the post office.