U.S. Postal Service shifts postmarking process from local post offices to regional processing hubs
CENTRAL COAST REGION, Calif. (KEYT) – On Wednesday of last week, the U.S. Postal Service made changes to when mail is postmarked that could impact your bills and your ballot.
Starting Dec. 24, 2025, the nationwide mail delivery service will now only postmark mail on the, "date of the first automated processing operation" at a processing facility instead of your local post office.
The new policy, known as section 608.11 "Postmarks and Postal Possession" of the Domestic Mail Manual, was, "intended to improve public understanding of postmarks and their relationship to the date of mailing" explained the U.S. Postal Service in its Federal Register input regarding the change.
People sending mail who want to ensure their postmark matches when they gave their mail to a post office will have to ask for a manual or local postmark when handing in their mail in at a local post office or U.S. Postal Service retailer.
That manual postmark request is free, but additional verification of when your mail was mailed, such as Certified or Registered Mail, will still cost money.
"[T]he postmark was not previously defined in any current Postal Service regulations, and the Postal Service considered it appropriate to reflect these existing practices in the DMM [Domestic Mail Manual] to ensure that customers have a clear understanding of the postmark and what it means," noted the U.S. Postal Service in its Federal Register input about the change.
The Postal Service received 130 comments once the changes were shared with the public in August 2025, and members of the public noted the potential impact on mail-in ballots.
"Section 608.11 in no way signals a change in our postmarking procedures," argued the U.S. Postal Service in response to public comments. "[W]e have informed our customers who choose to vote by mail that they can 'ensure that a postmark is applied to [their] return ballot by visiting a Postal Service retail [location] and requesting a postmark from a retail associate when dropping off the ballot'."
Changes implemented by the U.S. Postal Service in April and July of this year have already impacted mailed ballots locally.
In October, the San Luis Obispo County Clerk-Recorder's Office warned that people living more than 50 miles from a postal processing hub should no longer assume their ballots will be postmarked the day they mail it.
Every single voter in San Luis Obispo County lives more than 50 miles from the U.S. Postal Service hub in Goleta and voters are now encouraged by the local elections supervisor as well as the U.S. Postal Service to mail their ballots at least one week before Election Day.
State law allows ballots to be received up to seven days after an election and still be counted, but ballots that are not postmarked by Election Day are not counted.
"As part of the Postal Service’s plan to achieve financial sustainability and service excellence, RTO [Regional Transportation Optimization plans implemented in July 2025] is an effort to align transportation schedules between processing facilities and Post Office locations to improve operational efficiencies," explained Meiko Patton with the U.S. Postal Service's Sacramento office in response to Your News Channel's inquiries this week about the change. "Prior to RTO, the Postal Service would send trucks to each Post Office location twice per day. The first trip would arrive in the morning from processing facilities, dropping off mail and packages specific to that office for delivery by mail carrier or distribution to PO Boxes. A second trip would arrive later in the day to pick up mail and packages which were collected during the day and bring them to the appropriate facility to be processed and dispatched into the postal network. RTO aims to improve the efficiency of our transportation network for Post Office locations serving ZIP Codes that are more than 50 miles from regional processing and distribution centers (RPDCs) through elimination of the multiple daily trips between processing facilities and Post Offices."
How much additional revenue was expected to be raised by potential increases in requests for Certified Mail, Registered Mail, and Certificates of Mailing which provide proof of mailing and delivery for a fee went unanswered, but Patton did share that, "Implementation of this [postmarking at mail processing hubs instead of local post offices] program will improve the usage of our transportation network, reduce the overall number of trips which will significantly reduce costs and carbon emissions, and in many instances, increase the efficiency with which customers receive their mail."
Allegations of widespread fraud through mail-based voting have become more acute in the last few elections cycles often with little to no evidence.
After losing the Presidential Election of 2020, President Trump claimed that mail-in ballots were subject to fraud by foreign governments after voting in the same election by mail.
RIGGED 2020 ELECTION: MILLIONS OF MAIL-IN BALLOTS WILL BE PRINTED BY FOREIGN COUNTRIES, AND OTHERS. IT WILL BE THE SCANDAL OF OUR TIMES!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 22, 2020
The Federal Bureau of Investigation found no evidence of any such large-scale voter fraud scheme.
On Aug. 18 of this year President Trump posted on Truth social, "I am going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS" through an executive order before stating that the United States is the only country worldwide that uses mail-in voting.
According to the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, 34 countries/territories allow some version of mail-based voting including Canada, Germany, and the Republic of Korea and eight states, including California, use mostly mailed-in ballots for their elections notes the National Conference of State Legislatures.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced that it was sending election monitors to five counties in California to observe voting during the 2025 Special Election before suing the state over the results without noting any voting irregularities.
"They [States] must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them," argued President Trump in the same August 18, 2025, post. "Democrats are virtually Unelectable without using this completely disproven Mail-In SCAM. ELECTIONS CAN NEVER BE HONEST WITH MAIL IN BALLOTS/VOTING".
Article I Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution assigns the authority to determine the times, places, and manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives to respective state legislatures while empowering Congress to pass laws that may alter those regulations.
The Office of President of the United States is not mentioned in the clause.
"Most comments [received regarding the postmark changes during a public comment period] adopt a more critical posture," admitted the U.S. Postal Service. "The purpose of DMM [Domestic Mail Manual] Section 608.11, and our forthcoming education efforts, is to make the actual meaning of the postmark more widely known, so that customers who may currently lack a clear understanding of the postmark can, if necessary, make adjustments to their mailing behavior—for example, by dispatching their mailings earlier, obtaining a manual (local) postmark at a retail location at no additional cost, or purchasing a Certificate of Mailing."
