Election Mail Authorized By The US Postal Service

Probably nothing to this, but I recently received a local census form in the mail that used an "Official Election Mail" logo on it, probably justified because of the caption:

"Warning - Failure to respond to this mailing within 10 days may result in removal from voting list."



In any event I was comparing the cover to the official USPS Guide for use of the "Election Mail" logo and find that it varies somewhat in that the caption "Official Election Mail" is followed by a TM (trademark) logo as opposed to the USPS Guide below which shows the logo having a (R) (registered) logo after it.

https://about.usps.com/publications/pub631.pdf

Probably nothing much to it, even though it represents a variance from the logo shown in USPS Publication 631.

I suppose like everything else, there are varieties of this cover that one may collect.

I wonder if it is legitimate? Can they actually bump you from the voting registration for not responding? Could it be lame political propaganda?

Most cities & towns in MA require census registration on an annual basis. They need to report to the state their populations for many State funded programs which are based on a cities or towns demographics. they use the census response to check against their voting rolls/lists to see if that specific voter is still a resident of the municipality. By not responding they may think that the person has moved, passed away, and no longer living in the jurisdiction. I might think that maybe after a couple of no responses that that name would be removed from the voting rolls to prevent a non-resident of a precinct or ward from double voting or 'stuffing' a vote in the name of someone legally registered but no longer living in the town. Since there is no requirement to show identification to the poll workers this can happen. If a name is dropped and a legal voter appears at the poll, identification is made and the person is allowed to vote. It is part of the census that verifies a properly registered voter is domiciled in the voting district. The use of the logo would be appropriate as it directly bears on the legitimacy of the voter registration.

Call your local (county) Board of Elections and ask for clarification.

I spoke to the Town Clerk. She says they send this yellow form out every year as part of their census gathering. This is the first time they use this particular window envelope and it did come form them.

A subsequent use of that Election Mail envelope imprint, this time with a meter overprint and a spray on postmark on top of it. I can see the meter if it wasn't used as part of a mass mailing, but the killer bar postmark seems rather useless, especially since there's nothing (such as a stamp) to cancel. The "spray on" date is virtually meaningless, since it is completely illegible.

sounds a bit confusing to me. I don't believe we have that in Minneapolis.
Tom