19 Investigates creates mail speed test, finds no significant delays using several Cleveland-area post offices

CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) - The United States Postal Service’s delivery performance has become a major point of contention, especially in battleground states this election since thousands of voters are mailing ballots instead of voting in person.

This week, a federal judge ordered the U.S. Postal Service to take “extraordinary measures” when it comes to ballots. Judge Emmet Sullivan even required a sweep of several processing facilities in battleground states on Tuesday to make sure no absentee ballots are held up.

Here at home, our 19 News investigators have been tracking the speed of the mail leading up to Election Day.

We mailed letters from five post offices in the Cleveland area.

• Lakewood
• Rocky River
• Downtown Cleveland
• Shaker Heights
• Beachwood.

We did our test four times, each on a Tuesday before a noon collection on the postal boxes.

Though each office varied in distance from the destination of the letter, almost every piece of mail was delivered in two business days.

There was one week where the letter coming from Beachwood took five business days.

Though our test couldn’t possibly cover every post office or mailbox in Northeast Ohio, the results we received didn’t show anything alarming which will hopefully translate to all the election mail still coming in to be counted.

Anthony Perlatti at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections says officials are only waiting on 10% of absentee ballots to arrive for counting.

The absentee ballots must make it to the board of elections within 10 days after the election in order to be counted.

“The post office has been doing a good job getting mail to us and I would think that any ballot placed in the mail yesterday hopefully, and most likely, will be received within the 10 days,” he said.

If you happen to still have your absentee ballot in your possession, it can only be turned in by hand to your board of elections office by the time polls close Tuesday.

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