By WG Dunlop - AFP
Social media posts have appeared claiming that stamping a ballot with paid postal service will cause it to be treated like
first-class mail
, rather than regular letters that take longer to arrive.
But the Postal Service says prepaid envelopes are already considered first class, so adding a stamp to them is neither necessary nor will it have any effect.
“Adding a stamp to your prepaid ballot will force the mail to treat it as first class rather than the heap.
Spread the word, ”says a Facebook post on September 12, 2020.
[Follow our coverage of the 2020 presidential elections]
The false claim has also circulated on Facebook here, here and here;
on Instagram here;
and on Twitter here, here and here.
The Donald Trump administration has been accused of wanting to undermine the Postal Service in an attempt to support his re-election, raising fears that the ballots mailed will not arrive on time.
An unprecedented number of mail-in ballots are expected to be used this year as they are considered safer than voting in person during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But a Postal Service spokeswoman said adding a stamp will not make the ballot travel faster.
"If the electoral authorities pay for the stamp of the envelope in which the vote is sent, it is already a
first-class
correspondence
, so adding a stamp to the envelope is unnecessary and will not improve the service," Martha Johnson told AFP. in an email.
“If the stamp is not paid for by the electoral authorities, voters must make sure that the correct stamp is added to the envelope.
Postal Service regulations require states to tell voters how many stamps are necessary for a ballot, and if voters put that stamp on you, your ballot will receive first-class mail service, ”Johnson added.
Trump has time and again attacked the credibility of vote-by-mail, pointing out that it will lead to massive ballot manipulation.
But AFP has already written about the risk of mail ballot fraud and found it to be miniscule.
Find more information about absentee and early voting in the United States here.
This data verification was translated into Spanish by
Andrea López-Cruzado
thanks to the
FactChat
agreement
, coordinated by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) with the support of WhatsApp.
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