Better late than never? Post card mailings
I hope nobody kills me for not mentioning some of this sooner. First of all I have worked a lot of the amazing post card mailings to individual voters in campaign states. And it never ends, no matter if it's a big fall election or a special. And I can tell if the local effort is any indication that the coverage nationwide must be astounding. They get through and they seem timely enough and fairly well addressed.
Yes, I work in the upstate NY Post office that handles these. Like most all mailings of this type, one would like to give the mailers better advice or even a reality check. These mailings are by far not the worst because they hold up to the machines and often get good barcode imprints. What mailers and individuals never seem to get is tailoring the material for the machines. The card stock should be thick enough and the dimensions not too small or special. Both front and back of the cards should have clear light space on the bottoms for imprinting codes. We imprint codes on both sides. With a code, a card will speed to its destination through automation. During the election some of the codes were unreadable because they overlapped a dark area on one side or both(the front is the most important!)
Sometimes the address is wrong. Address corrections come through daily so no list can be perfect. Our correction machines(PARS operations) put a yellow sticker and a correction on the card- sometimes days later. Now the bar code can be imprinted without a problem! A lot of money must go into mailing these cards so I hope this will get them better, faster service. They all look handwritten and personalized which seems totally unbelievable when you see them pouring in.
As for political mailings in general, you can't beat professionalism in the card stock, design, practical size, appearance and above all machinability. Mailers know there must be the right dry lubricant on the pieces or static and wet ink will make them stick together, but it still happens. Avoid staples and open edges although if done right almost anything can get through. If we have to add the barcode, it might smear on a glossy mailing. That means it might get sorted up to as point and then go to the rejects, maybe getting a grey sticker added for another go at barcoding. More time lost.
I know this is a boring subject except for those doing the mailings, but unless you know what happens on the inside your efforts will lose a day or two so I hope this can be of help.
I have been out of DU during the Trump years. Sorry this is so late.