GAO: USPS Fails Its Own Delivery Targets as Midterm Mail Ballots Approach
A federal watchdog finding that the Postal Service is missing performance benchmarks it set for itself raises concrete logistical questions about ballot delivery reliability in November 2026.
The U.S. Postal Service is failing to meet its own reduced delivery-speed targets, according to a report released by the Government Accountability Office, arriving less than two months before the November 2026 midterm elections in which mail ballots will move through the same system.
The GAO finding, cited by Axios on September 18, 2026, concludes that USPS slowed mail delivery as a cost-reduction measure and subsequently set lower internal performance targets, yet is still failing to achieve those revised benchmarks. The GAO is a nonpartisan congressional watchdog whose reports are public record and available through gao.gov.
The USPS delivery slowdown is not new policy. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy unveiled a ten-year restructuring plan called "Delivering for America" in March 2021, which formally extended first-class mail delivery windows from one to three days to up to five days for certain routes. The plan was projected by USPS at the time to save approximately $160 billion over a decade, according to the agency's own published financial disclosures.
What the new GAO report adds is the finding that actual performance has fallen below even those extended targets. The specific metrics, including on-time delivery rates by mail class and region, are contained in the full GAO report. The report number and complete data tables are available through the GAO public database. As of publication, USPS has not issued a formal written response to the GAO's findings in a document accessible to this publication.
The electoral stakes are direct. Twenty-seven states and the District of Columbia permit any registered voter to request a mail ballot without providing a reason, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Several additional states conduct elections entirely by mail, including Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Utah, and Hawaii. In those all-mail states, the Postal Service is the primary channel through which ballots are both distributed to voters and returned to election offices.
Delivery timing is not a minor administrative matter in this context. Many states impose deadlines requiring that mail ballots be received, not merely postmarked, by Election Day or a fixed number of days afterward. A ballot that moves through a slower-than-target postal system and arrives after a state's receipt deadline is not counted, regardless of when it was mailed. The specific receipt deadlines for each state are codified in state election law and published by the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Congress has direct oversight authority over USPS. The Postal Service is an independent establishment of the executive branch under 39 U.S.C. Section 201, and its board of governors is subject to Senate confirmation. The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability and the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs hold primary jurisdiction over postal operations. Neither committee had issued a public statement responding to the GAO findings as of this publication's deadline.
The 2022 midterm cycle offered a partial precedent. In that election, USPS processed approximately 32 million mail ballots, according to the Election Assistance Commission's 2022 Election Administration and Voting Survey, a public document. Several county election officials in Pennsylvania and Michigan reported isolated delays in that cycle, though no comprehensive federal count of delayed or uncounted mail ballots attributable specifically to USPS performance exists in publicly available records.
For the 2026 cycle, total mail ballot volume is not yet estimable because individual state ballot-request data will not be complete until closer to the election. The EAC will publish its definitive survey after the November election.
Federal election law provides limited direct remedy for postal delays. The Help America Vote Act of 2002 established minimum federal standards for provisional ballots and voter registration, but it does not set a federal floor for mail ballot transit times or require USPS to prioritize election mail above other classes. Some states designate election mail as a priority class under agreements with USPS, but those agreements are made at the state level and vary.
What remains unknown is whether USPS has a specific contingency plan for the November 2026 election period. The document that would answer this question is an internal USPS election mail operational plan, which the agency has published in prior cycles through its Election Mail program webpage. As of September 18, 2026, no updated 2026 operational plan was publicly posted at that location. A USPS spokesperson had not responded to a request for comment before this story was published.