Should mail-in ballots that are postmarked by Election Day but not delivered until after still be counted towards results?

Yes (69%) – "It is a simple solve and clear. If it is postmarked by election day it should count. Exactly as our tax returns do. Why would one postmark count and the other not count. USPS is a federally recongnized entity and their postmark should mean something."

• "If you didn’t count something that was postmarked by election day, it would be an incentive for the Post Office to delay delivery thus disenfranchising voters."

"Actually postmarked by election day is maybe not the correct measure, there should be a clearly advertised and known latest posting dates for in state, out of state, overseas and military posting. Votes received after the election day but posted before the deadline should count, if you just forget to post on time and your vote arrives after the election it should not count. After all if you forget to vote in person on election day there is no option to then vote the day after."

• "The VOTER did their part correctly and MAILED the ballot on time. The failure to DELIVER was the fault of the POST OFFICE. Therefore, the VOTER should not be penalized in any way. As a guiding principle, Democracy should always be encouraged and promoted, not artificially limited."

"Yes, they should definitely count because voters did their part on time. If someone mails a ballot by Election Day, delays in the postal system aren’t their fault. Some people live in rural areas and others may have limited access to dropboxes or early voting. I believe that elections should reflect all eligible votes cast on time not just those processed quickly."

• "They should be counted because you complied with election date. However, now that the post office is not required to date stamp mail the same day it's put in the box this could get complicated. People may not be aware that their mail is not getting date stamped for up to several days after they mail it."

No (27%) – "Election results should be calculated in a swift and decisive manner. We shouldn’t be waiting on possible absentee ballots to arrive. Voting by mail? It’s your responsibility to get it done and sent in plenty of time to be counted."

• "Extending beyond Election Day offers more opportunity for fraud than we already have from unsupervised mail-in ballots. Change Election Day to Saturday."

"Election Day was created so that all elections run on that day, having mail in ballots counted up to 3 weeks later is way outside the thought behind the concept. Why not just create a mandatory mail By deadline 2 weeks prior that everything must be mailed by. You can even have extended post office hours (like tax day) to handle any potential increase in postmarking being done that day."

Unsure/other (4%) – "It's a standard policy across lots of mail to have a 'post marked by day'. It makes no sense to ask people to try to predict when the postal office will manage to get their mail in ballot to the election office; but it also doesn't make sense to be counting votes weeks after Election Day. If we're significantly concerned about mail in ballots coming in late, I think it would make a lot more sense to say the 'post marked by date' is, say, a week before Election Day. There should still be a cut off date for counting mail in ballots after Election Day, but this could possibly eliminate some issues. This is definitely not a perfect proposal, but it seems to me like an interesting solution that I'd love to see people explore as a possibility."