TALLAHASSEE
The U.S. Postal Service rejected Leon County's mail ballot envelope design on Sept. 2, citing a spacing discrepancy of 0.014 inches. The words "return service requested" and the election office's return address were 0.236 inches apart, short of the required 0.25 inches.
It was a test case for new USPS design rules that originated from President Donald Trump's March executive order targeting mail voting. The new regulations require election officials nationwide to submit their mail ballot envelope designs for review.
Leon County Supervisor of Elections Mark Earley called the initial rejection "ridiculous." He told the Tallahassee Democrat that sustained rejection would leave insufficient time to reprint new envelopes before Florida's Sept. 24 deadline for mailing ballots.
Earley's office filed an appeal after the Sept. 2 rejection. The appeal was initially denied, but the county's envelope design received approval on Sept. 10 following further discussions.
A federal court injunction currently blocks USPS from fully implementing the new design rule, making USPS design approval voluntary and prohibiting the agency from refusing to mail non-conforming ballot envelopes. The U.S. Supreme Court could rule on this injunction at any time.
Hundreds of election officials, including Earley, have challenged the technical requirements. They filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court, urging the justices to continue blocking the rule's implementation.
Earley submitted Leon County's envelopes for review shortly after USPS posted its final rule, saying he "did not wish to take any chances that Leon County voters would be potentially negatively impacted by the Rule." The rejection was based on older, voluntary mail processing standards now incorporated into the new rule's mandatory review requirements.
Leon County has used the same barcoded mailers without issue in prior elections, including 2024. The new rule mandates unique barcodes for each voter, a practice Leon County already employs for its 32,000 mail voters.
