The New York City Board of Elections received an unusual delivery from the United States Postal Service last month — nearly two thousand pieces of first class mail bound for their office last fall. The package included hundreds of absentee ballots that should have been counted in the November 2017 general election.

Altogether, the Postal Service delivered 1,983 pieces of mail in two separate deliveries on April 24 and 25 that should have arrived at the Board of Elections last fall. The deliveries included 533 absentee ballots postmarked November 7, 2017 which should have been canvassed and counted. They also contained another 280 ballots postmarked after the Election Day deadline, and 15 with a missing or illegible postmark, which would not have counted.

New York City Board of Elections Executive Director Michael Ryan said that the Postal Service has taken full responsibility for the late delivery — and for disenfranchising hundreds of voters.

"For some undetermined reason, some baskets of mail that were bound to the New York City Board of Elections were put off to the side at the Brooklyn processing facility and eventually discovered, and upon discovery, delivered to the Board of Elections," Ryan said during the public portion of Tuesday's BOE meeting this week.

Ryan also stressed that these were all first class pieces of mail and it was the Postal Service’s responsibility to deliver them — not the BOE’s responsibility to pick them up.

But a letter from New York Postmaster Elvin Mercado to Ryan this week makes the point that there was a "verbal agreement" between the Board of Elections and the Postal Service permitting the BOE to pick up ballots during the election season.

"Regrettably, local [Postal Service] management failed to follow up and did not continue delivery because they expected a pick up even after the October – November agreement," Mercado’s letter states.

Ryan disputes that portion of the Postal Service’s explanation.

"[It’s] not a replacement for the first class mail delivery," he told WNYC.

A spokeswoman for the Postal Service said election mail is a very high priority and apologized to the Board for this "miscommunication," noting that the Board had asked for permission to pick up mail during this time. 

"We had no end date in place on that request and therefore, mail continued to be held due to this miscommunication," spokeswoman Maureen Marion emailed. She said, "This year, the Postal Service will continue to deliver mail daily to the Board to insure that there are no additional concerns."

In addition to the three citywide races for mayor, comptroller and public advocate, and three statewide ballot initiatives, voters in Brooklyn cast ballots for the Kings County district attorney.

There were also three different judicial races, 15 different City Council races and one State Senate race, depending on where a voter was registered in the borough.

Ryan said the uncounted ballots were spread across 20 different Assembly districts and no contests were changed by this error.

But he added, "whether an outcome was affected or not does not excuse the failure of delivery of this important mail."

The BOE will notify voters by the end of next week if their vote was part of the lost batch. Ryan said the BOE will send voters a letter explaining what happened with the Postal Service, along with a copy of the letter below.

Letter From Elvin Mercado USPS - 05-29-2018 by Brigid Bergin on Scribd