Mail your ballot early if you want it to count, Pierce County officials warn
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- USPS proposed postmark rule could disqualify last-minute mailed ballots.
- Pierce County urges drop boxes and earlier mailing to protect vote counts.
- Auditor advises hand-stamp requests and online tracking to confirm receipt.
Ballots went out to Pierce County voters Oct. 17, but those who mail in their ballots for the November general election could face the risk of their votes not counting thanks to a new proposed change by the U.S. Postal Service.
USPS has proposed a rule change regarding postmarking, which is the date USPS stamps on letters and parcels to indicate when the post office received it. The postal service wants to add language clarifying that the “postmark date does not inherently or necessarily align with the date on which the Postal Service first accepted possession of a mail piece,” according to a recent news release.
That basically means that ballots mailed in at the last minute, even on Election Day, risk not being counted if they are not postmarked with a Nov. 4 date.
In 2024 about 70% of voters in Pierce County submitted their ballots via drop box, Pierce County elections manager Kyle Haugh told The News Tribune on Oct. 16. Pierce County voters can also drop off ballots at the Auditor’s Office, vote in person or mail in ballots (although they need to be postmarked by 8 p.m. on Election Day, he said).
The Auditor’s Office has long cautioned voters to mail in their ballots a week before Election Day to ensure they will be counted.
“Our messaging has always been: As you get closer to Election Day, you should utilize a drop box,” Haugh said. “We have them all around the county. Especially as we get closer to Election Day, we empty them every day. … We are there at 8 o’clock on election night with staff to close them as well and receive those last minute ballots. That advice from us has been consistent for a decade now.”
Auditor Linda Farmer sent out a news release Oct. 16 recommending voters who are mailing in their ballot on Nov. 4 to ask postal workers to hand stamp their ballot to ensure it is postmarked with that date. Mailed ballots that are not postmarked on or before Election Day will not count, she said.
Haugh said he couldn’t surmise why the USPS wants to make the changes but said the Pierce County Auditor’s Office always meets with its local postal partners in the Tacoma area to discuss changes, voter turnout predictions and other information during the election cycle.
“They are very communicative with us,” he said. “They’re always working with us … whatever’s going on with the rules at the national level.”
Haugh said he wants to encourage people to vote and “especially in these low turnout years, your vote matters even more.”
When asked why its proposed changes are so close to Election Day, USPS said the changes are part of a plan since March 2021 to modernize the post office and improve service. Washington USPS spokesperson Janella Herron told The News Tribune on Oct. 21 that postmarking policy is not changing, but there are changes occurring in USPS’s regional transportation schedules that can change the timeline for the postmark.
“As we modernize our transportation network and our mail processing network, most mail and package volume will be processed more quickly, but it is becoming more common that mail is postmarked at the processing facility a day after it is collected by a carrier or dropped off at a Post Office,” she said in an email. “For domestic, nonmilitary voters who choose to use the mail to return a completed ballot, our general recommendation is that, as a common-sense measure, they should mail their completed ballot before Election Day, and at least one week before the deadline by which their completed ballot must be received by their local election office.”
Herron said if people want to ensure their ballot receives a postmark with a date that aligns with the date it was mailed, “the customer should visit a Postal Service retail location and request a manual postmark at the counter in person. It will be provided free of charge.”
Learn more about how to register to vote, find drop boxes and see who is running for office in your district online at https://www.piercecountywa.gov/328/Elections. Once you submit your ballot you can also track its status to make sure it was received by logging into VoteWA.gov and clicking the tab that says “ballot status.”
Find more information about which candidates are running in offices like the Tacoma Mayor on The News Tribune’s website, in addition to candidate interviews and endorsements by The News Tribune’s Editorial Board.
This story was originally published October 22, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
