Mail-In Ballots May Be Delivered Postage Due

ELECTION  MAIL  POSTAGE  ELECTIONS 

By Pete Springer

Portland, OR  May 7, 2008 3:03 p.m.

Postage rates go up Monday and that means the cost to mail ballots will also go up.  But as Pete Springer reports, you’ll probably be okay if you forget to add the extra stamp.

The cost to mail a standard letter -- or a ballot -- goes up by one cent on Monday -- from forty-one cents to forty-two cents.

Without the additional penny of postage, though, ballots will still be delivered, says Ron Anderson, a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service in Portland.

Ron Anderson: “It would make it to the county elections office and the postal service would deliver it to them -- and it would be presented to them as a postage due item.”

Voters in Lane County face an additional postage charge. The ballots there are so big they require 58 cents postage through Sunday, and 59 cents after that.

However, voters can use drop-boxes and other locations such as county libraries to hand in their ballots without paying for postage.

As of Tuesday, about four-percent of registered Oregon voters had turned in their ballots. Votes are counted on May 20th.

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