In Kansas, mail must frequently be routed to New Mexico, Colorado or Missouri to be processed before returning to the state, even if it is being delivered a few miles down the road.
Mail struggles across the state have become increasingly acute in recent weeks, with a bipartisan pairing of Kansas’ Congressional delegation in U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran and U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids sending a letter to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy demanding answers.
“We write in response to numerous reports of significant mail delays impacting Kansans across the state,” Moran and Davids wrote. “In recent months, our offices have received a growing number of messages from Kansans concerned about missing mail, delayed postal delivery and extended periods with no delivery service at all.”
But proponents have argued that most states do not have a post-election window for ballots to arrive and that the appearance of late-arriving votes swaying an election has fueled mistrust in the electoral process, even though there has been no evidence of fraud in Kansas elections.