How long is the mail actually taking?
Every voting site, including this one, tells you to mail your ballot about a week early. That number comes from a USPS guideline, not from measurement. Nobody publishes what mail is really doing in your county this month, which is strange, because it's the whole question behind the fight over mail ballots.
So we're measuring it. It takes about two minutes a week.
What you actually do
- Write your own address on a postcard. Any postcard, or an index card with a stamp.
- Drop it in a public collection box or hand it to a clerk. Note the date.
- When it lands in your mailbox, note that date too.
- Tell us the two dates. That's the whole job.
Why this works
A ballot travels from your mailbox to your county election office, which is nearly always local or regional first-class mail. A postcard you send yourself travels the same class through the same local facility, so it's a fair proxy for how long your ballot will take, measured this week rather than assumed from a guideline.
It's not perfect. Your ballot may travel further than across town, and election mail gets some priority handling that ordinary postcards don't. We say so on the results page, and we show the sample size next to every number so you can judge it yourself.
What we collect
- Your email, so we can send the weekly reminder and nothing else.
- Your ZIP, so we can group results by county.
- Two dates per postcard.
We never ask for your address, and we publish only county and state aggregates with at least three samples, never individual reports. Leave any time with one click in any email.