[thephyber]

Mail in ballots still need to get to the voter before Election Day. If the voter doesn’t deliver it to a post office or a poll station before Election Day it doesn’t get counted. Can you imagine how pissed people will be if Election Day rolls around and fewer than 50% of mail-in voters have been delivered ballots? Taxation without representation doesn’t go over well in the USA.

Yes, people can go to a polling place and file a provisional, but the whole point of mail-in is so we don’t have to. Also, with COVID affecting older people more than younger, there may be a shortage of poll workers.

Also prep time: The county election office needs a reliable estimate of how long the mail leg will take so they can target the process of printing and sending the voter package. They need to be able to print some of the packages on short notice for newly registered voters and party affiliation changes.

[ars]

The voters are sent ballots weeks in advance. A day or two delay makes no difference.

[thephyber]

If that's an accurate description of the delay, then I agree.

However, I've seen tweets suggesting that recent (since COVID lockdowns) delays of more than a week are currently not uncommon and I don't have any evidence that the USPS is shrinking their backlog right now. Given the current trajectory (eg. the current Postmaster General is denying overtime), I expect the possibility of many ballots missing delivery by Election Day unless USPS prioritizes those deliveries.