The Postal Service wants employees to remember the differences between Election Mail, Ballot Mail and Political Mail — and to know the right tags to use.
Election Mail is any item mailed to or from authorized election officials that enables citizens to participate in the voting process. This includes ballots, sample ballots, voter registration cards, absentee ballot applications and polling place notifications.
Ballot Mail, a subset of Election Mail, is sent to or from an authorized election official and contains a ballot that may be used to cast a vote in an election.
Only Ballot Mail is permitted to use Green Tag 191, Domestic and International Ballots, and Ballot Mail service type identifiers.
Political Mail is any material mailed for campaign purposes by a registered political candidate, campaign committee or committee of a political party.
It also includes any material mailed by a political action committee (PAC), super PAC or other organization engaging in issue advocacy or voter mobilization.
Only Political Mail can use Red Tag 57, Political Campaign Mailing, Political Mail service type identifiers.
Ballot Mail and Political Mail tags and service type identifiers can be found on PostalPro.
The Election and Government Mail Services Blue page has more information.