Commissioners address missing mail-in ballot issue
Butler County commissioners have received “thousands” of media requests about the disappearance of mail-in ballots in Butler and other counties, and to clarify the matter they held a news conference Thursday to assure voters that they are delivering ballots.
The U.S. Postal Service said it wasn't aware of any issue regarding ballots not being delivered.
Commissioners Leslie Osche, Kevin Boozel and Kim Geyer announced Thursday that the county is delivering mail in ballots “as we speak.” They also noted that sheriff's deputies are hand-delivering ballots to people in the county, and for out-of-state voters they are expediting the mailing process.
The commissioners also said that they had no indication why some voters did not receive their ballots.
The commissioners couldn't say how many mail-in ballots were missing or disappeared, but Osche noted the county mailed 40,000 ballots and 21,300 have been returned.
Aaron Sheasley, director of the elections bureau, revealed Wednesday that he was contacted Tuesday by U.S. Postal Service officials at the federal level that an investigation is ongoing into the disappearance of mail-in ballots in Butler and other counties.
But a spokesman for the USPS said they weren't aware of any issue. “Regarding mail sorting and delivery in Butler County, the Postal Service is unaware of any significant delays or issues and is in regular contact with the Board of Elections as we work to locate and deliver ballots as they are presented to us,” USPS spokesman Tad Kelley wrote in an email.
Kelley wrote that the post office is expediting the delivery and return of mail-in-ballots. These “extraordinary measures” include additional resources such as “extra transportation, extra delivery and collection trips and overtime to ensure that election mail reaches its intended destination in a timely manner.”
He also wrote that “local management is authorized and instructed to use extraordinary measures — expedited handling, extra deliveries and special pickups — between Oct. 26 and Nov. 24 to accelerate the delivery of ballots, when the USPS is able to identify the mail piece as a ballot.”
Kelley said the post office is working hard to “process a historic volume of election mail this season.”
When confronted with the post office's statements Thursday, Sheasley doubled down on his claim that the USPS is the one that contacted him about the issue.
Osche noted that some voters requested multiple mail-in-ballots because they were getting multiple applications and that may have contributed to the problem.
For now, Osche said, the county isn't looking into the matter.
“We don't have time to worry about the hows and the whys,” she said.
Boozel said, “We don't believe it was a problem on our side.”
Another factor that might have contributed to the problem is that there are 20,000 additional registered voters in Butler County for this election cycle compared to the primaries, according to Sheasley.
