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My aunt in London told me to just mail my US ballot from a postbox there
She said it always works for her but my ballot never arrived and I had to vote provisionally at the consulate three weeks later, anyone else get bad advice from family abroad about voting logistics?
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the_hayden8d ago
Honestly, did your aunt even check if international mail deadlines are different this year?
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lunah128d ago
My aunt in Chicago told me the same thing last year. She said she's been mailing her ballot from a random mailbox for 20 years. It never arrived. I found out later that USPS doesn't scan those outgoing international ballots the same way. It's like people treat voting like mailing a birthday card. They just assume the system works because it always has for them. But voting has way more rules and deadlines than regular mail. Family means well but they don't realize how much the logistics have changed.
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smith.nancy8d ago
Oh wow, that's rough @lunah12. Here's what nobody talks about though. Those mailboxes in front of post offices? They get emptied more often than the random ones on street corners. My friend worked at USPS for a bit. She said the blue boxes outside actual post offices have pickup times printed right on them. The standalone ones in neighborhoods can sit for days between pickups. So if someone drops a ballot in a random box Friday evening, it might not move until Monday. That's a whole weekend lost.
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