Mailing 1000+ Letters

Wow! Thank you for your extraordinary commitment to increasing civic participation.

Make a Plan 

If you distributed letter templates to others, follow up with each letter writer to confirm that their letters are written and their envelopes are addressed, stuffed, stamped, and ready to mail. Check that all of these letters are marked "prepared" on your dashboard. And if other letter writers are mailing letters to voters that you adopted, share our Getting Ready to Mail guide with them right away so they can make a mail day plan of their own. 

Get to know your post office

  • Take some time this week to locate and reach out to your post office. If your post office is closed on the mail date, is there another post office nearby that will be open? If not, plan to drop your letters off as close as possible to the mail date.

Sorting facility drop-off (for big, big senders only)

  • If you are mailing a very large quantity of letters (i.e., tens of thousands) and live in a major city or near a USPS sorting facility, it's possible to drop your letters off there, which will cut processing time. You should ask your local post office or mail carrier about how to do this. If you’re not sure where your sorting facility is, ask your mail carrier or at your local post office.

Borrow USPS trays

  • Please visit your post office ahead of time to borrow trays. You'll want one for each batch of about 400 letters. If you can’t borrow trays, use a box or boxes.

Organize your letters

  • Remove all rubber bands. We’re mailing first-class, so sorting by zip code is not necessary, but all your letters should face the same way.

Double-check the hours for your post office

  • Earlier is better, particularly if your post office has limited hours. Your post office may have a place where you can drop your letters even when the post office counter is closed.

Take photos!

  • The best way to share them is to share them on social media and tag us so we can amplify your posts! You can find us as @votefwd on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
  • If you prefer, you can also share them with the Vote Forward team using this form (note: requires a Google account), or by sending an email to photos@votefwd.org.
  • Be sure to crop, blur, or otherwise hide voter names and addresses!

Mark your letters "sent" on your Vote Forward dashboard 

Congratulate yourself!

  • You have taken concrete action to encourage your fellow citizens to vote. 

Other mailing considerations

Mailing from a rural area of the US
  • If you live in a rural area with a small post office, there’s no need to take your letters to a larger post office, so long as there is one pickup by USPS to transport mail to a larger facility each day. You can call your post office to check on this.
Mailing from outside the continental US
  • From overseas, Canada, or Mexico, mail one week early (or earlier based on your experience sending mail to the U.S.). If you're not sure about how early to mail, reach out to your local post office early to ask about delivery times to the U.S.
  • From Alaska, Hawaii, or a U.S. territory, mail 3 days early.
Service interruptions
  • If you're mailing from an area affected by severe weather or the COVID-19 pandemic, check here for service interruptions; you might need to take your letters to a different post office.
COVID-19 precautions
  • If you are quarantining or don’t feel safe going to your post office, make arrangements with a friend, neighbor, family member, or neighborhood mail carrier to pick up and mail your letters for you. Dropping your letters in a blue mailbox may also be an option if you feel you can do it safely.

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