In an election-focused group on Elon Musk’s X platform, a man made what he described as a “bombshell” allegation about the US Postal Service.

“The United States Postal Service recently changed the method of delivering absentee mail-in ballots!” Peter Bernegger wrote in a post from October 27. “They hide the evidence of absentee ballot fraud – by not allowing the evidence to be created in the first place.”

In a nearly 400-word post, Bernegger asserted that the Postal Service improperly directed post offices “NOT to send mail-in absentee ballots to central sorting. But, instead, to take them to the electoral clerks”. He said that meant “no electronic report card images are created,” which he argued amounted to the intentional concealment of fraud.

Bernegger, based in Wisconsin, has rejected the results of the 2020 election. Since 2020, he has filed numerous lawsuits against local election offices, accusing them of fraud, while promoting litigation and false claims of election fraud online, The Guardian reported. Wisconsin Election Commission in 2022 fined Bernegger more than $2,400 for frivolous election complaints.

In February, Wisconsin prosecutors accused Bernegger of forgery a subpoena for an election-related case and was charged with “fake legal process,” a felony. The criminal case against him continue.

Bernegger shared his post on the “Electoral Integrity” community that Musk’s Political Action Committee created on X. Since it was founded on Oct. 21, the group has amassed more than 60,000 members, many of whom circulate inaccurate election narratives, incl multiple claims I checked the facts.

I contacted Bernegger on X and by email through his organization, Monitoring the electionsbut received no reply.

(Screenshot from X)

Bernegger’s post provided no evidence to support his claim. He included an image of a letter from the Postal Service saying the agency had found no documents to satisfy its Freedom of Information Act records request for “all electronic images of all mail-in ballots.” sent by Wisconsin municipal and county officials. from Sept. 17 until October 14. He also attributed the alleged changes to Amber McReynoldsthe vice chairman of the Board of Governors of the US Postal Service and a President-designate Joe Biden.

I searched using Google and the Nexis news archive and found no credible reports or information to support the claim that McReynolds advocated for mail-in ballot delivery changes in 2024. I also found no credible reports that the Postal Service would have made changes to its procedures for postal ballots. .

U.S. Postal Service spokeswoman Martha Johnson told PolitiFact that the Postal Service has not “recently changed the method of ballot delivery,” as the posts claim. The Postal Service used the same procedures for previous general elections, she said.

The US Postal Service’s “extraordinary measures” for election mail are not new

As it has done in recent election years, the Postal Service on October 21 launch what is describes as the “extraordinary measures” Johnson said were “designed to expedite the delivery of mail-in ballots close to Election Day.”

The measures include extra collections, extra deliveries, special plans for sorting processing equipment and a different way to handle mail-in ballots, Johnson said.

“Under normal operations, any mail, including the ballot, is handled and stamped at the processing facility closest to the originating post office and, depending on how far it travels, will be handled again at one or more closer processing units. to the (destination) post office,” Johnson said.

Under the special election year process, however, mail-in ballots addressed to a local or nearby elections office “will bypass the processing operation and instead be stamped at the local facility and delivered to the elections office,” Johnson said. “This is consistent with our practice in previous general elections.”

Of the agency press release 2020 used the same language of “extraordinary measures”. I also found a more detailed one Memorandum October 2020 detailing similar provisions, including one authorizing local post offices to postmark and deliver ballots to election boards “in lieu of ballots being placed in the automated stream.” A September 2022 Nota said the agency would apply the same “extraordinary measures” as in 2020.

An official mail-in ballot for the 2024 United States general election is displayed in Pennsylvania on October 8, 2024. (AP)

Barbara Smith Warner, executive director of the National Vote at Home Institute, said special ballot procedures are “well known” and “regularly implemented” among Postal Service offices and staff across the country.

“The extraordinary measures process is set for every general election and was not done out of the blue,” she said.

In 2024, the Postal Service’s “extraordinary measures” for election mail started earlier but “are the same or largely the same” as the measures in 2020 and 2022, said Amy Cohen, who works closely with state election officials across country as executive director. of the National Association of State Electoral Directors.

Cohen added that while the measures mean some ballots don’t make it to processing facilities, “keeping election mail local helps it move through the system faster.”

There may be no digital images of the ballots, but that doesn’t mean fraud

If ballots bypass automated processing, the Postal Service cannot generate electronic images of the ballot envelopes as it would normally do as part of informed delivery service, according to the agency’s website. Informed Delivery is a registered postal service program that sends image previews of incoming mail from the postal service. However, those images “are provided only for letter-sized mail items that are processed through USPS automated equipment.” Postal Service website say.

But there is no evidence that the lack of images signals fraud.

Brenden Donahue, deputy U.S. postal inspector in charge at the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, told PolitiFact that there is no threat to election security when digital images of ballot envelopes are not created.

“The Postal Service uses a variety of robust measures, processes and procedures to ensure the safe, secure and timely delivery of our nation’s election mail, including ballots,” Donahue said. “Capturing images of postal items is not one of those standard measures, processes or procedures.”

Experts told PolitiFact that the Postal Service works alongside U.S. election officials and has built experience and refined its processes over time.

Michael Alvarez, political and computational social sciences at Caltech and co-director of the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project, said he recently activated webinar conversations with numerous election officials discussing mail-in ballots and the Postal Service.

During those discussions, those election officials expressed “no concern” about “any changes in USPS delivery of mail-in ballots,” Alvarez said.

Our decision

An X post said “The United States Postal Service recently changed the method of delivering absentee ballots” to hide “evidence of absentee ballot fraud.”

Close to Election Day, the Postal Service handles mail-in ballots differently than other mail, but this procedure is not new. Election experts and a Postal Service spokesman said the agency has made similar changes to ensure prompt delivery of election mail in previous elections, including 2020 and 2022.

A spokesman for the Postal Service dismissed claims that the agency’s special measures for election mail signal fraud, saying the measures are intended to speed up the delivery of ballot mail.

We evaluate these false claims.

PolitiFact researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

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