through USPS and it isn't uncommon for the package to stall at their sites for up to four days.

election. Seriously, post office? You INTENTIONALLY held onto ballots? Is that the job of the post office?

Depends on what the arrangement is for picking up/delivering mail. It sounds like they've arranged for pick up, not delivery, of the mail bins with mail-in ballots.

If it's agreed that the customer will pick up the mail because there's a large amount of it, then after the last pick up on 11/6 the post office would wait until the next pick up by the customer. The BOE has a 10-day window for certain classes of ballots, and the only ballots they care about are those in those specific classes--overseas votes, for instance. Meanwhile, back on the farm, the BOE staff are busy with all kinds of other things to deal with--sorting, counting, reconciling records, preparing for the final canvassing of the machines or books. The stacks of ballots that arrived late are immaterial until the 10-day window is past. Personally, I'd wait until near COB on day 10, pick up all the bins with ballots, and on day 11 sort them. At that point the mess in the office would be cleared up, all the valid ballots received by election day would have been counted and stowed some place, machines canvassed, and there'd be little risk of mixing late arrivals with those received on time. On day 11, pull out the late ballots in the proper categories, dispose of the rest, and count those which are valid.

I wouldn't expect the PO under those circumstances to deliver the ballots after election day. In fact, if they tried to deliver them I'd have them put in a storeroom as close to the delivery entrance as possible, and make that room off limits--once those ballots are opened and the envelopes disposed of, you can't tell valid from invalid ballots, so it's like having barrels of toxic waste on site. Nor would I expect the PO to dispose of them. "Held" isn't a term in the article, but it would suffice. Secure, safely separated from known valid ballots, waiting for action.

It would be different if the election law said "all ballots postmarked by the day before election day"--then some would still be arriving on 11/7 and 11/8 and tapering off by 11/11 and 11/12. I personally think that's a horrible criterion, though, because some might still arrive on 11/18 and 11/25 and 12/15.