Through its partnership with JumboVote and the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life, Mail Services has worked to prioritize election-related mail in order for students to receive their mail-in ballots promptly and cast their votes in the election.
This collaboration came into effectin the spring after issues with election-related mail. Many students living in Houston and Miller halls, which underwentrenovations that changed how residents receive mail, had not been notified by Mail Services that their ballots had arrived.
JumboVote Student Chair Lidya Woldeyesus explained that this miscommunication prevented some students from receiving their ballots right away.
“Last year in the primaries in the spring, we did have a couple of issues with Mail Services,” Woldeyesus, a junior, said. “When you live in Houston and Miller you are supposed to go regularly check your mailbox in Mail Services, and people were getting ballots at Mail Services but weren't going and checking that they had mail, and Mail Services, in turn, also was not communicating that mail was being delivered."
Director of Facilities Operations Jeff McKay wrote in an email that, once identified, these problems were quickly resolved.
“Mail services started to collect all election materials and send an email to the recipients to let them know they arrived in the mailroom and they could be picked up there. Once that system was put in place the inquiries for lost election materials stopped,” McKay said.
To prevent the same confusion from hindering general election ballots, the groups established a voting mail working group that spent much of the summer and early fall creating a plan for the general election. Daniela Sánchez, student outreach coordinator at Tisch College, said that the prevalence of mail-in voting in the upcoming election made their work even more important.
“For this election, so many people might have been relying on vote by mail, more than ever. [Tisch College] made sure to start meeting with Mail Services in July, along with Residential Life,” Sánchez said. “We started to set up a plan."
McKay said that now all students living on campus receive an email when they get election-related mail. Students living in Miller and Houston must retrieve their ballots at Mail Services, while students living in other residence halls have the choice to pick up their ballots at Mail Services or get them delivered to their mailroom.
Election-related mail and packages can also be delivered to students living in COVID-19 isolation housing who contact Mail Services, according to McKay.
To further ensure the successful delivery of ballots, Tufts Eco Reps, Tufts Labor Coalition and JumboVote sponsored an initiative called “Offline October.”
“[Offline October] encouraged students to just hold off on nonessential purchases throughout the month of October, so that Mail Services, working at the capacity they have to work for COVID-19, could process things like election mail in an easier way,” Sánchez said.
Jen McAndrew, director of communications, strategy, & planning at Tisch College, said Tufts encouraged all students to return mail-in ballots two weeks before the election. Woldeyesus said that the current political climate necessitated this grace period.
“We were telling students because of the political climate that we're in … that we recommend all students send their ballots within two weeks of election or two weeks of when their ballots were due,” Woldeyesus said.
McAndrew said that the collaboration between JumboVote, Tisch College and Mail Services was important to ensure the prioritization of general election mail this semester.
“Together, I think all these initiatives helped to prioritize election related mail during a very busy semester for mail services on campus," McAndrew wrote in an email to the Daily.
