The Postal Service™ encourages election officials to use all available tools to improve the visibility of their Election Mail within the postal network. In particular, we strongly recommended that election officials use the Election Mail Checkboxes in eDoc, Mail.Dat, Mail.XML, Postal Wizard, and Intelligent Mail for Small Business (IMsb) Tool when preparing mail for processing.
To further increase visibility, in July 2024, the existing Election Mail Checkbox was separated into two distinct checkboxes: Election Mail – Official Ballots and Election Mail – Non-Ballot Materials.
As a reminder, Election Mail is any item mailed to or from authorized election officials that enables citizens to participate in the voting process, such as sample ballots, voter registration cards, absentee ballot applications, and polling place notifications. Ballot Mail is a subset of Election Mail. It consists of any mailpiece sent to or from an authorized election official containing a live ballot that may be used to cast a vote in an election. It is critical that mailers understand the difference between Election Mail and Ballot Mail when selecting the correct checkbox while presenting the mail.
Except for Electronic Verification System (eVS®) mailings, all domestic commercial mailings must use an approved electronic method to transmit a postage statement to the PostalOne!® system.
The Postal Service provides free means of electronic postage statement submission through the IMsb Tool and Postal Wizard. There are also approved third-party software options available on PostalPro at https://postalpro.usps.com/.
Please check the – “Election Mail - Official Ballots” or “Election Mail – Non-Ballot Materials” box for each mailing presented for acceptance. This provides the Postal Service with important insight into Election Mail and Ballot Mail volume by entry point that may help with future Postal Service capacity planning.
An example of the Election Mail Checkboxes are illustrated below.
