A Feature Not a Bug

The Baltimore post office sat on 65,000 pieces of political mail for at least 5 days before the primary.

Not ballots, mind you, but this is just the dress rehearsal.

It's a great way to depress turnout at the (overwhelmingly Democratic) Baltimore City:

An audit of U.S. Postal Service performance during this year’s primary election season has found 68,000 pieces of political mail sat untouched at a Baltimore mail processing facility for five days ahead of the June 2 primary.

The audit published Monday says the mail, sent May 12, “sat unprocessed” for five days before being discovered by management at the facility.

Baltimore was in the midst of several contentious political races at the time, including those for mayor, comptroller and City Council president. Numerous candidates for those offices spent thousands of dollars on campaign mailers in an attempt to sway voters in close primaries.

Ballots destined for those voters also were in the mail stream during the window when the political mail sat at the facility, but the audit specifically stated the delayed pieces were not ballots. “This was First-Class campaign mail from a political candidate,” according to a footnote in the report.

 I'm going to drop off my ballot this year.