AN INSIGNIFICANT CHANGE? PART 2

YESTERDAY WE SHARED TIM MCPHILIPS’S PBS NEWS article “How This New Mail Rule Could Affect Your Ballot, Your Tax Return and More.” Today in Part 2, we begin with some USPS propaganda, followed by additional McPhilip’s analyses.

Fast-Forward to January 2026. “Postmarking Myths and Facts” is issued by the U.S. Postal Service. Read it and see if you agree it’s a deft bit of Trump propaganda—published at our expense, of course.

The USPS “doth protest too much, methinks.” In particular, it describes, “While we are not changing our postmarking practices, we have made adjustments to our transportation operations that will result in some mailpieces not arriving at our originating processing facilities on the same day that they are mailed.” 

This is, at best, a shading of the truth, depending upon one’s understanding of “originating processing facilities.”

Back to McPhilip’s Article: “In states such as California and Nevada,” he recounts, “ballots need to be postmarked by Election Day to be counted, otherwise they will be late and not included. In the past, voters could usually expect a postmark on their ballot the same day they dropped it off. But new, longer transit distances for your mail could mean more time between dropping a ballot off at the post office and receiving a postmark—and possibly the difference between your vote counting and missing the deadline.”

McPhilips continues, “The beleaguered postal system is undergoing a broad reorganization, including the consolidation of nearly 200 sectional facilities – where mail is typically postmarked – into 60 regional processing locations, which are likely to receive fewer truck dropoffs per day.”

A decade in the making. Image from The Brookings Institute.

Distance Matters. McPhilips notes, “More than 70% of post offices will now be more than 50 miles away from a regional processing center, according to an analysis from the Brookings Institution. More than 25% of post offices will be 150 miles or more away.”

So where is your regional processing location? I Googled “USPS Regional Processing Centers,” and an A.I. Overview recounted, “USPS Regional Processing and Distribution Centers (RPDCs) are large, modernized facilities serving as central hubs for sorting and transporting mail and packages within specific regions. Part of a national network overhaul, these centers aim to improve efficiency by centralizing operations, with plans for approximately 60 RPDCs nationwide.” It listed “Active/Early Phase: Richmond, VA (Sandston), Atlanta, GA (Palmetto), Charlotte, NC, Portland, OR, Boise, ID, and Chicago, IL.” Recall, this used to be nearly 200 down to a planned 60 and at this writing, apparently, 6.

Mail-in-Ballots to Come. McPhilips observes, “But not all election boards make the same allowances, so be sure to check your state and local rules. The USPS recommends bringing any mail items that need a day-of postmark to a staffed retail location and asking for a free, manual postmark.”

Gee, another USPS line.

“Otherwise,” he concludes, “if you drop important documents in the mailbox, be sure to do it before your deadline.” 

I’ll surely get that right come November (or in any other California ballots-by-mail). ds 

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2026