Undelivered ballots were found at one Miami-Dade post office. Now others being searched
Two days after inspectors found dozens of undelivered ballots sitting in a post office in South Miami-Dade County, the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General is preparing to sweep other mail facilities in Miami-Dade for ballots that haven’t reached their destination ahead of the Nov. 3 election.
Scott Pierce, the special agent in charge for the USPS Inspector General’s Southern Area Field Office, confirmed to the Miami Herald on Sunday afternoon that special agents “will be busy over the next couple of days conducting several station visits” at mail distribution centers in Miami-Dade.
Pierce wouldn’t disclose which locations or how many would be searched.
“Our investigation continues and, at this time, we aren’t releasing any additional statements,” he said.
On Friday night, agents discovered 48 ballots in the Princeton post office near Homestead after state Rep. Kionne McGhee tweeted a video that showed a backlog of undelivered mail piling up at the facility. McGhee said the video was shared with him anonymously by a concerned USPS employee.
Pierce said 42 of the undelivered ballots had not yet been delivered to voters. Twenty-four of those were delivered to voters Saturday, election officials said, while the others belonged to people who had already voted early in-person or with replacement mail ballots. Another six ballots had already been filled out and were brought to the elections department.
The incident heightened fears in South Florida that the U.S. Postal Service won’t deliver ballots to county election officials ahead of the state’s 7 p.m. Election Day deadline for ballots to be received. More than 479,000 residents of Miami-Dade County had voted by mail as of Sunday, shattering previous records. But even with federal courts across the United States ordering the USPS to ensure timely ballot delivery, on-time delivery rates for first-class mail are still lower than usual nationwide.
On Friday evening, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernández Rundle called on the USPS to search every mail distribution center in the county for undelivered ballots, and for those ballots to be brought immediately to the Miami-Dade Elections Department ahead of the Nov. 3 election.
It is not clear to what extent USPS officials are responding to that request. Pierce didn’t specify how the facilities were selected, and referred questions about mail processing and delivery to South Florida-based USPS spokeswoman Debbie Fetterly.
Fetterly referred questions to Pierce on Sunday morning.
A lack of confidence in the USPS appears to be affecting voting methods in the days leading up to the election. Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections Christina White said that, as of Friday, about 70,000 voters in the county who requested mail-in ballots have canceled them and opted to vote in person at early voting sites.
Among them is Joan Campbell of Miami Shores, who requested a mail ballot but says she never received it. She instead cast her ballot at North Miami Public Library on Oct. 19, the first day of early voting.
“It appears something went wrong with your ballots delivery as we mailed it to your correct address on October 1, 2020,” a Miami-Dade elections official wrote to Campbell in an email.
Campbell said she tried contacting the U.S. Postal Service about the undelivered ballot but had no luck. Last Tuesday, Campbell received an email from USPS customer support saying she would be contacted, but she said she hasn’t heard anything since.
“I went and I voted [in person] because I have a feeling it’s not gonna come in time,” Campbell told the Herald. “I have a feeling that, some way, somehow, they’re holding my mail.”
Mail problems in Princeton
In Princeton, the unincorporated South Dade area where inspectors found undelivered ballots on Friday, some residents said they have been experiencing mail delivery issues for months — including not receiving ballots on time.
That disruption poses a unique threat to residents there. Many among Princeton’s Black population — which comprises one-quarter of all households there — are elderly or reside in low-income housing, and do not have access to reliable transportation. They need mail-in ballots to have their votes heard.
“There are a lot of elders,” said Naomi Watson Butler, 62. “We count.”
Watson Butler was a late arrival to a Saturday news conference produced by McGhee, the state representative, about the undelivered ballots in Princeton. She had been hoping to speak to McGhee about what to tell her friends and neighbors still missing ballots who were not sure they could make it to the polls Tuesday.
“They don’t have rides,” she said. “A lot are on disability.”
Resident Keiva Rodriguez, 50, said one of her sons, who is disabled, has been waiting on his ballot since July. Another son never received his ballot at their home address in Princeton after requesting one in April, and ended up requesting another one when he arrived at college in Gainesville.
“I don’t think it was fair that my son is in college in Gainesville and he couldn’t vote for his district where he was born and raised,” Rodriguez said in an interview. “That was not fair to us.”
Reached by the Miami Herald, some of Rodriguez’s neighbors at the Pine Island apartment complex outside Homestead Air Reserve Park said they too had experienced disruptions in mail delivery, though others said there had been no delays.
The residents who had seen breaks in service said they were variously told by post office workers that there had been caps placed on workers’ hours, or that service had been disrupted by the coronavirus.
Pine Island resident Tavon Jones, 19, said he had successfully received his ballot this month, but said it had been sent back to him multiple times in for him to correct or update it with additional information. He was still uncertain about its fate, saying he was not sure how to check its status.
“It’s my first time voting,” he said. “I know it’s really important to do this, to make a change.”
This story was originally published November 1, 2020 at 6:39 PM.
