MERCED, Calif. — The days of leaving a mail-in ballot in your mailbox with the flag up just before Election Day are over in Merced County.
Mel Levey, Merced County Registrar of Voters, said he’s informing voters to get their mail-in ballot to the post office at least a week before the primary election on June 2.
The message comes after state data reflected an uptick in rejected mail-in ballots during last year’s special election because they were postmarked after election day.
State election rules say that mail-in ballots can be counted up to seven days after polling stations close as long as they are postmarked as being received on Election day.
According to a KVPR analysis of data from the Secretary of State’s office, nearly 3% of returned mail-in ballots in Merced County were not received on time to be counted in 2025. The total number of rejected late ballots in Merced County was nearly seven times — and over 1,400 ballots more — as those rejected at the general election in 2024, despite 2024 having a significantly larger voter turnout. Other rural counties in the Valley including Kern, Stanislaus and Tulare also saw large numbers of late ballots during the last election.
“What we found in the special election last year was not a partisan issue,” Levey, of Merced County, said. “It did not affect one type of registered voter more than the other… it was not all Democrats. It was not all Republicans or all ‘no party preference.’”
Levey said the high number of ballot rejections were likely the result of a new rule from the United State Postal Service that requires most mail to be postmarked at a regional distribution center rather than a local post office station unless specifically requested by the mailer. Although the rule went into effect in December, Levey said officials were talking about it ahead of the special election. He said this could have an effect on rural counties whose distribution centers are farther from their local post offices.
The mail distribution center serving counties such as Merced County is in West Sacramento. The distance can result in last-minute ballots being postmarked after election day even if they were mailed on time.
This could have implications on this year’s elections, as municipal and federal races tend to be razor-thin, especially in Merced county.
In 2024, Democratic congressman Adam Gray, who represents House District 13, beat then-incumbent Republican John Duarte by just 187 votes. District 13 comprises Merced County and parts of Stanislaus counties. It was the closest U.S. House race in the nation.
Levey is keeping those kinds of close races in mind ahead of this year’s elections.
“I'm hearing people tell me, ‘my vote doesn't matter,’” Levey said. “Merced County begs to differ, right? We're proof that your vote does matter.”
A history of mail-in ballots
According to Merced County and state experts, mail-in ballots are the most common way of voting, and have been for the last decade.
Levey said prior to the county enacting the Voter’s Choice Act, which required every voter be sent a mail-in ballot by default, one in five voters were already using mail-in ballots. He attributes this to the great distances residents commute to for work.
“I think one of the things that's lost in the conversation is how the voting population lives and works differently today than we did 20 years ago, 30 years ago, certainly 40 years ago,” Levey told KVPR. “What we find is that if you look at election night on a Tuesday night, at say, six or 7 p.m., there are a lot of folks in Merced County who are not home yet. They are commuting home still.”
Levey said between 85% of 92% of voters take advantage of mail-in ballots in the county, and around half of those ballots are actually mailed rather than just dropped off at a ballot box or turned in at a polling station.
This practice mirrors statewide trends, according to Mindy Romero, the director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy at University of Southern California.
She said over 80% of voters used vote-by-mail ballots in California in 2024, and these numbers are spread pretty evenly by demographic.
“Overall vote-by-mail use is now everybody, the majority of all groups use vote-by-mail,” Romero said. “But Latinos and young people in California use it a little bit less compared to other groups.”
Both Levey and Romero said the most common reason a vote-by-mail ballot is rejected is often because the signature on the envelope does not match the signature for the voter on file. Levey, of Merced County, said the elections office uses signatures from previous ballots, voter registration and DMV forms to determine if a signature matches.
He acknowledged a voter’s signature can, of course, change from the age of 18 to 50.
“I think if you talk to anybody, they'll probably tell you that their signature has changed since they were 18 or 19 years old,” he said. “We see a lot of voters who may have registered when they were a young adult, and years, maybe decades later, their signature looks a whole lot different.”
When this happens, Levey’s office will try to reach voters to “cure” a ballot, or sign an affidavit that proves their ballot is theirs. But this doesn’t matter for ballots that arrive late.
“They can get their ballot counted,” Levey said. “One thing that they cannot cure is if a ballot arrives late.”
Romero said in the past ballots were rejected most commonly for being late. But after California extended the number of days a ballot could be accepted in the mail after election day, the number of late ballots decreased.
The ballots rejected during a special election paint one kind of picture – but don’t reveal how this looks in the general election when voter turnout is higher, Romero said.
“We can't be looking to the special election to tell us what to expect this election cycle, because it's a special election,” Romero said. “It's not a representative right electorate. So we'll know more when we get through this election cycle.”
In the meantime, Levey is already informing voters about what could happen if they mail their ballot too late.
“We have a 29-day voting period here in California,” Levey said. “We encourage voters, if they're ready to vote, ‘Don't delay. Make your voice heard. Get your vote in.’”
Community groups focused on other issues, but willing to help
Levey’s office is pulling out all the stops to give voters information on the post office rules around postmarks. He said there is an advertisement on local radio stations, social media and even cellphone alerts. He also put a blurb in the Merced County voter guide and in other mailers recently sent out.
His advice to voters: mail in your ballot however you’d like unless you’re a week or less out from election day. Later than that, think of some other options, he said.
One of those options includes taking your ballot to the post office and having a worker hand-stamp a postmark on it.
“You want to take it inside and get that hand postmark. You want to swing by one of the drop boxes or vote center,” Levey said.
The Secretary of State’s office is also sending out similar advice to voters throughout the state through press conferences, community outreach events and in conversations with election officials and the press, according to a statement sent to KVPR.
The United State Postal Service spokesperson Meiko Patton said in a statement the service has “successfully delivered America’s election mail, and we are confident that we will do so again this year.”
“We rely on longstanding, robust and tested policies and procedures, which have proven successful in the secure and timely delivery of Election Mail,” Patton wrote. “We are fully committed to our role in the electoral process when public policy makers choose to use the mail as a part of their election system or when voters choose to utilize our services to participate in an election.”
Meanwhile, Levey, the Merced County registrar, is trying to connect with local advocacy groups so his messages reach a bigger audience. Susan Walsh, the president of the Merced County League of Women Voters, contacted Levey after hearing about the late ballot issue from KVPR.
Walsh and Levey said they strategized ways the league can let voters know in their upcoming events around the election.
“Levey is working real hard to make things better at the registrar of voters office and we’re happy to help however we can,” Walsh told KVPR.
Walsh said the bigger issue she sees around late ballots is that people’s voices get shut out.
“I’ve voted for a long time…I knew right away what the election day was,” Walsh said. “The world has changed and [voters] need to start thinking about what that means for getting their voice heard.”
Gene Johnson, the chair of the Merced County Republican Party also said the party isn’t super focused on fixing the late ballot issue, but the party is definitely making sure Republican ballots get counted. One way they’re doing this is by a process called “ballot harvesting,” or hand-delivering ballots from their party’s voters.
“We're pushing the ‘Get out the vote,’” Johnson said. “We're pushing registration. We're trying to get people hyper-aware of when the ballots do come out… they should be in everybody's houses, and that's when we're going to start our work towards the ballot harvesting.”
Johnson said he generally doesn’t support mail-in ballots, unless they’re for members of the military or disabled voters. He’s more focused on Voter ID issues this election partly because of the close congressional races in the Valley.
“We should all vote by paper, [go] to a voting center, have our IDs checked, and then put our ballot inside a box, and then it all gets counted that night,” Johnson said. “I don't believe in the mail-in ballot thing, but if you're gonna have mail-in ballots, there should be checks and balances.”
In a statement to KVPR, the Democratic Party of Merced County said they’re also canvassing door-to-door as planned.
But with the recent information on late ballots they are making sure voters “have the information they need to mail in their ballots as far in advance as possible and that they’re also aware of the voter drop boxes they can use up until election day to make sure their vote is counted.”
