Postal worker union demands equipment reinstatement to preserve November election

MEDFORD, Ore. – The Southern Oregon American Postal Worker Union says if they cannot reinstate postmarking machines in Southern Oregon, voters’ ballots in the November election could be jeopardized.

For two decades, Oregon has been one of eight states to vote exclusively by mail.

Recently, the United States Postal Service consolidated services by cutting truck routes and shutting down local postmarking machines in Southern Oregon. Outgoing mail has to be sent through Portland.

Southern Oregon American Postal Workers Union President Jeremy Schilling says postal workers’ concern began when they saw firsthand the impacts this had on the 2024 local primaries.

“The postal service said, ‘this won’t have any impact on your election,’ and we had to take them at their word until we had an election,” said Shilling.

Schilling says when postmasters and supervisors realized the primary election ballots needed to be sent to Portland, postal workers were told to take ballots out of the mail and to load them in their personal vehicles and drop them in county drop boxes after post office closing hours.

“We immediately told our members that they should tell their postmaster or their supervisor ‘no we’re not going to do that.’ And the postmasters and supervisors then began doing that themselves. You can’t just break the chain of custody on a ballot,” said Shilling.

In May’s election primaries, post officials and workers realized if it took too long for ballots to travel to Portland and back, they would be considered invalid.

“With the mail leaving the Rogue Valley, Josephine and Klamath counties, we found that the mail was taking seven, eight– even nine days to return back to the Jackson County Elections Office,” said Schilling.

According to Jackson County Election Clerk Chris Walker, in order for a ballot to be valid it has to be postmarked by election day and has to be received by the seventh day after the election.