Someone actually devoted government resources, in the form of the Government Accountability Office (GAO), to determine whether or not converting elections to a vote-by-mail system would create enough revenue to save the United States Postal Service (USPS). Answer: not a chance.
“We estimate that not only would this amount of election mail have minimal impact on mail volume but, more importantly, it would not significantly increase USPS’s revenues,” wrote Lorelei St. James, Director of Phyiscal Infrastructure Issues for the GAO. She added that “the willingness of the public and election officials to increase the use of voting by mail appears questionable, further reducing the potential to deliver profits for USPS.”
Whatever revenue the USPS might gain from the election mail would not “affect its deteriorating financial condition,” St. James wrote.
