Mail Class

The Postal Service continues to recommend that election officials use First-Class Mail® for their outbound ballot mailings to voters. Using First-Class Mail allows for

faster service while providing high visibility as the ballot mailpiece moves through the mailstream (when used with USPS^® visibility tools, like serialized Intelligent Mail® barcodes). Nevertheless, the Postal Service has long engaged in several practices to prioritize ballots that are entered as Marketing Mail, regardless of the paid class, when capacity permits and mailpieces are identifiable as ballots by the Official Election Mail logo or other Postal Service visibility indicia.

The Postal Service will continue to process and deliver expeditiously, as we have done in past elections, with the result that Ballot Mail commonly receives delivery timeframes equivalent to First-Class Mail even when mailed as Marketing Mail.