This news story, “From the wartime ’40s, two letter eye-openers” , reminded me that we don’t know a lot about postal mail delivery rates — and consequently how much election mail, especially ballots, get delayed or even lost in the mail.

This is especially significant as we are going through a round of municipal elections tomorrow here in Southern California, and many voters participating in those elections (including myself!) will do so via mail ballots. This is an important, and understudied, question about election administration — how many ballots are undelivered, lost, or delayed in the mail?