The ballots are in the mail: Let the chaos begin!

North Carolina election officials began distributing mail-in ballots on Friday, September 6. This is just the start of the bad news.

Tarheel State residents can expect those ballots to arrive as early as Saturday. Some will fill them in and send them back that day. So, Americans will have voted for president four days before the first (and perhaps only) debate between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald J. Trump.

This is as sick, twisted, and un-American as a jury issuing a verdict before hearing the cases for the prosecution and defense.

What the hell is the rush? Do North Carolinians really need to choose the next leader of the Free World 60 days before Election Day?

Pennsylvania similarly will disgrace itself on September 16. Wisconsin's self-debasement follows, three days later.

These three swing states, and others soon thereafter, will make this momentous choice — and determine control of the Senate, House, governors' mansions, and city halls — long before late-breaking news erupts that changes their minds. This could include scandals, gaffes, or economic data that could make mail-in voters wish they had opposed candidates whom they had supported. Conversely, policy proposals, compelling arguments, or even riveting ads could make detractors wish they had cast their mail-in ballots in favor of those whom they rejected.

Too late!

Once a voter submits a mail-in ballot for tabulation, that die is cast, no matter what developments might merit a request for a re-do.

The cancer of mail-in ballots metastasizes from there.

The U.S. Postal Service's Inspector General (USPSIG) audited 15 mail-processing facilities and 35 delivery units in 13 states and Puerto Rico during the primary elections last February and March. According to the USPSIG's report, 97.01% of 33,042,496 ballots transmitted to voters arrived on time, as did 98.17% of the 10,258,169 ballots that were sent to boards of elections.

In other words, 987,970 or 2.99% of these ballots reached voters too late. Likewise, 187,724 or 1.83% of these ballots returned to election officials after their legal deadlines.

"We identified processes and policies that could pose a risk of delays in the processing and delivery of Election and Political Mail," the USPSIG's audit states. "Further, we identified issues related to some Delivering for America operational changes that pose a risk of individual ballots not being counted."

The USPSIG found a postal venue where, on primary election day, "personnel stopped segregating the ballots about four hours prior to when ballots needed to be received at the board of election offices." Even worse, "local management at one facility stated they were not aware primary election day was that week."

If repeated by November 5, such incompetence could prove decisive. Consider these 2020 swing-state margins of victory:

Donald J. Trump – North Carolina - 1.34%

Joe Biden – Georgia: 0.23%, Arizona: 0.30%, Wisconsin: 0.63%, Pennsylvania: 1.16%.

Had the Postal Service delivered a hypothetical 1.83% of ballots that arrived belatedly (if at all), one or more of these toss-up-state results could have changed. It is no far stretch to imagine that tardy mail-in ballots sank Trump's re-election.

By the Postal Service's admission, failure is not an option. It's a given.

"What should the average voter think about the US Postal Service's own figures?" asks Veronica Lakeworthy, a southern California clean-ballot activist and member of the Murrieta-Temecula Republican Assembly. "Inefficient election-mail handling can swing the results by excluding YOUR VOTE!"

Worse yet, the mail-in ballot malignancy goes far beyond hapless, but honest, postal workers. Security-technology expert and election-integrity advocate Jay Valentine of Fractal Computing LLC and Omega4America.com estimates that 3.5 million mail-in ballots will reach phantoms at unqualified swing-state addresses. These include 81 "voters" registered at a Reno, Nevada, parking garage and 143 at industrial facilities in Hennepin County, Minnesota, alone.

Unless Republican campaign officials immediately insist that county clerks send zero voting materials to these illegal addresses, GOP candidates and Trump himself could die in November from Stage 4 mail-in ballot cancer.

© 2026 Deroy Murdock