Federal Reports

Our objective was to evaluate the U.S. Postal Service’s service performance of Election and Political Mail during the November 2020 general election. We also evaluated the handling of mail for the Georgia Senate runoff election held on January 5, 2021.The Postal Service prioritized processing of Election Mail during the 2020 general election, significantly improving timeliness over the 2018 mid-term election even with significantly increased volumes of Election Mail in the mailstream. Although timeliness was slightly below goals, proper handling and timely delivery of all Election Mail, especially ballots, was the number one priority of the Postal Service. The Postal Service also leveraged high-cost efforts such as extra transportation and overtime to improve delivery performance. Further, while our site visits did identify some delayed Election Mail and compliance issues, the Postal Service took immediate corrective actions to address the identified issues. However, we did find opportunities for the Postal Service to increase the volume of ballots included in service performance and improve its internal communication on Election Mail guidance and processes.

We determined that the Federal Emergency Management (FEMA) Region II (Region II) and New York State’s Division of Homeland Security Emergency Services (DHSES) have not adequately monitored or timely closed hundreds of projects, awarded at $578.8 million, for 7 disasters we reviewed.  We recommended that Region II and DHSES address the procedural controls in the closeout process in order to be adequately prepared for the large number and complexity of the next wave of projects ready for closeout.  We made four recommendations that will help strengthen internal controls to improve oversight of the PA grant program.  FEMA concurred with all four of our recommendations.