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AN INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER SERVING THE GW COMMUNITY SINCE 1904

The GW Hatchet

Serving the GW Community since 1904

The GW Hatchet

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Officials name senior vice president, chief of staff
By Fiona Riley, Assistant News Editor • March 26, 2024

Staff editorial: Moot mail

In a presidential election with only several hundred votes separating the winner and the loser, every vote counts. But several GW students were disenfranchised this election season – not by their states or by failing to comply with complicated absentee requirements, but by absurdly slow mail delivery to campus residence halls.

Students in residence halls throughout campus reported delays as long as two weeks in receiving their absentee ballots. Many were unable cast the first presidential vote of their life in one of the closest races in U.S. history. This should not happen at a University that touts the high level of political participation of its students.

Problems with campus mail delivery are not new; in a Sept. 14 Hatchet story, Andrew Sonn, associate director of GW’s Housing Services, empathized with students who were not receiving their mail on time. He said the department was working to address the problem. But it seems nothing has changed.

The University employs an independent contractor to deliver mail from the post office to campus. GW Mail Services sorts the mail by building and delivers it to residence halls for work-study students to sort and place in individual mailboxes. In light of slow mail delivery, this convoluted process is clearly flawed and should be changed.

Mail Services reports that is has largely succeeded in meeting its target for a 24-hour turnaround from the post office to campus buildings, leaving individual residence halls to blame.

Although Mail Services claims to have seen improvements in the system throughout the year, the system failed when improvements were vitally necessary.

The burden needs to be shifted from student sorters, who have not proven themselves, to professionals who must meet strict standards for efficiency.

As disenfranchised students continue to receive their now moot absentee ballots, they deserve to see a campus mail system as reliable as any other mail systems servicing surrounding Foggy Bottom apartment buildings.

GW has failed students who hoped to have their voice heard, but it is not too late to fix a flawed system.

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