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Some Northeastern students couldn't vote because campus mail system is slower than molasses

The Huntington News reports an apparent we'll-get-to-it-when-we-get-to-it campus mail system that meant some students didn't get absentee ballots in time to vote in last month's election.

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A university spokesperson claimed their mail system was fine, and the post office was taking 15 days to deliver mail. She also claimed there’s no way to track a ballot’s delivery after it’s mailed.

Really? Maybe in 2020, but I didn’t hear anything about major mail delays in 2022. A Google News search only found this article, and a similar article from George Washington University. And that article said several students were able to track their ballot up until USPS delivered it at the school.

As far as outgoing mail being collected once a week, which the spokesperson didn’t address, that really sucks, but the lesson learned is don’t trust any third party. Important mail goes directly from your hand into a USPS mailbox, or preferably to a clerk at a post office.

Another question is why are universities pretending to be the post office to begin with? I questioned this in college, and was told it was done because it made things faster. If the university is only introducing delays, could the post office take over stuffing the mailboxes, the same as any private apartment building?

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After the United States Postal Service and package couriers make their delivery to ResMail, the mail is sorted by building and package notifications are automatically emailed the student...

This is the problem. Northeastern still receives its mail in one big dump instead of working with the USPS to have mail presorted by building and floor.

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the usps arent going to sort a colleges mail by building and floor, too much turnover. most colleges have a central mail room and everything gets broken down there. most mail is picked up by students in their boxes.

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If the mail is addressed to specific buildings which have different street addresses, the USPS would break it down accordingly. Ex: 360 Huntington Ave, 380 Huntington Ave, 400 Huntington Ave, etc. If all the mail for Northeastern is addressed to 360 Huntington Ave, the USPS is only going to deliver it to that one address. It's up to the staff at NU to sort it and put the mail in their respective student mailboxes.
Unfortunately, when mail to colleges is "late", USPS usually gets the blame. It's internal at NU.

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Why aren't they? They deliver to apartment buildings. Don't they have to deliver to every address in the country? It shouldn't matter if the building is owned by a university and the resident is a student.

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My alma mater had its own real USPS office, and it was only 2000 students. I'm surprised that isn't true for Northeastern.

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Especially Boston. USPS wouldn’t be able to justify distinct post offices for Northeastern, Wentworth, Simmons, Emmanuel, Mass Art, and so on.

In eastern Mass, the closest I can think of a school having its own post office is Babson, and that’s probably just an area post office with the school’s name.

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Treats it's world class students as 2nd class checkbooks by turning 1st class mail into no class delivery.

What does Northeastern charge in tuition and fees for a zero class mail system?

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Why didn't he take it to the post office to mail?

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My huge caveat here is that my information is nearly two decades old.

However, I worked for ResMail my entire time at NEU and unless something has gone really, really wonky with the work study program, I don't understand how this could have happened. ResMail was always overstaffed by about 15-25% and many of us did additional mail runs for buildings already serviced that day, just to have something to get paid for.

I hope there will be some follow-up detailing what happened here, because there should not be a shortage of people able to deliver or collect mail on campus. It's not like it's the real world job market, it's one of the easiest work study gigs there is. Hence why my slacker butt was there.

If any more recent NEU folk have info, I'm interested in hearing it.

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