by As can be seen in the picture below, there is an issue with the receipt of NRA ballots by Rogers & Co. They are the accounting firm charged with counting the votes in the 2022 NRA Board of Directors election.
This is a case where the US Postal Service is not to blame.
Years and years ago I had a small business that managed political mailing lists and processed them to append the correct ZIP Plus 4. I understand something about how the Plus 4 for a ZIP Code is generated. In the case of post office boxes, the ZIP Plus 4 is the ZIP Code plus the post office box number. If you look at where I’ve circled in red on the envelope, you will see that this is not the case with the ballot return envelope. It is clear that when the Postal Service’s automated sorting equipment read the bar code below the address it saw this as a problem.
The correct ZIP Plus 4 for the return envelope of the ballots should have been 22027-0686. I confirmed this by using the Postal Service’s ZIP Code lookup tool.
The returned ballot leads to the obvious question: how many valid ballots have been returned to the sender or even discarded by the US Postal Service? The follow-up question is it enough to affect the outcome of the board election. With the death this week of Rep. Don Young (R-AK), you now have 29 candidates seeking essentially 28 seats when you add in the 76th Director. Until the votes are counted, we won’t know how many votes separated each candidate.
Ballots must be received by May 8th. If you have not returned your ballot yet, you may want to consider my suggestion on how to correct the issue.
In the picture below is another ballot that has not been mailed yet. If you look where I’ve circled in red, here are my suggestions to make sure it arrives in Dunn Loring, Virginia and is counted. First, scratch out the Plus 4 portion of the ZIP Code. Second, scratch out the bar code below the address. Doing both of these actions will prevent the US Postal Service’s automated sorters from rejecting the ballot due to conflicts between the address and the ZIP Code Plus 4.
It is my understanding that NRA Secretary and General Counsel John Frazer has been made aware of this issue. As this issue just came to light this weekend, it is too early to see if he will have any response.
UPDATE: If you are a voting member of the NRA and have not sent in your ballot yet, please check the envelope’s return address. I would like to know if you have a different return address or different ZIP Plus 4. I happen to know that these two examples come from the eastern Pennsylvania area. That is also the home of reform candidate Frank Tait.
You can leave either a comment in the comment’s section or email me at jpr9954 AT gmail dot com. I would especially be interested getting a photo of your envelope if it is different.
UPDATE II: I have heard from readers in Ohio, Maryland, Kentucky, and North Carolina that their return envelopes all had the wrong ZIP Plus 4 on it.
I have also heard that there are more people in eastern Pennsylvania who have had their ballots returned as undeliverable.
Alas, other half mailed our ballots in a couple of weeks ago, so we can’t check. But I’ll try to ask around if anyone I know in the area still has one. If these ballot envelopes which effectively make votes invalid (they could consider it tampered with – and they’ll refuse to accept regular envelopes with the correct address) were only sent to PA, that would be huge.
Whether this is incompetence or malice, I don’t know. I don’t have enough trust to assume it is simple incompetence. The things I’ve learned about people in charge there have made me question what I ever respected in any of them. And, oddly, some I really didn’t give much credit have actually had shinier spines. However, incompetence is also widespread these days there.
These days, the difference between a conspiracy theory and a real conspiracy is about 2 weeks.
Both of our family’s ballots came with the 9998 Zip plus four number.
Confirmed more ballots in eastern PA were sent with the wrong address.
Live in NJ, same address as the one in your post…
I’m about as far North and West as you can get before reaching Russia, and my ballot envelope has the same numbering as shown in your picture.
Confirmed a TN, too.
I sent mine last week and I guarantee it is wrong. I won’t get the return until a few weeks pass, if I receive it at all. All firms are responsible for the actions (or inactions) of their subcontractors. No excuses. Sometimes I think the NRA delegates non-secret Wayne stuff to a middle school class to see if the kids are up for the jobs…. JMHO
Forgot….I am in OH
I received the wrong zip code and I’m in Florida. Thanks for the info to correct it.
Same in IL.
Here in Texas, the address was also wrong.
This is a case where the US Postal Service is not to blame.
Thank you for highlighting this. I see the responses that have been forwarded to me show that they are trying to blame the post office despite USPS tools showing the zip+4 combination is invalid for this address. USPS is to blame for many things, but not the underlying problem that NRA sent these ballot envelopes. It wasn’t addressed correctly, hands down. The fact that they won’t admit this in their messaging is a huge problem for me. USPS has ever right to turn down incorrectly address ballots.
Also, Pennsylvania voters aren’t being notified about this based on what I have seen from members who are still getting ballots back. So if you know any resource to get word out into this community, please do so. It leaves me concerned that insiders will likely be told and warned, but casual voters – especially those we know are voting for the first time – won’t be notified unless they figure out how to complain. Even then, the directions on what to do that have been shared with me are not nearly as detailed to be as helpful. I believe it will likely cause more people to mess up the original envelope so their votes will be invalid. But, that’s just me. Maybe I’ve had too much interaction with older folks who too often need help with these types of things or need very specific instructions.
Same problem in Massachusetts
My ballots were returned to me in Tennessee.I will put mine and my son in same envelope and will cut off were we signed them and tape to ballot.
And, if you did this, you just made your ballots completely invalid. You could mail both outer envelopes with the ballot together in one larger envelope, but you had to leave the original envelopes in tact.
Your ballots will be disregarded. If you call, maybe, maybe you might be able to get replacements. But don’t count on it because they may blame you for destroying your own ballots.
So glad I saw this. My ballot (Maryland) was incorrect as well.
Corrected and n the mail!