Scads of San Franciscans have posted photos on the internet of their torn or crumpled ballot envelopes, which the Department of Elections sent out this month in advance of the Nov. 3 election.
Mission Local spoke with or received photos from more than a dozen voters from across San Francisco, demonstrating tears along the sides of the outer envelopes of the ballots. Additionally, a number of Mission Local employees’ ballot envelopes were torn. In some cases, the rip was minor but, in others, it was significant.
Neither Mission Local nor the Department of Elections has received a report of an actual ballot being damaged or spoiled — only tears of the outer envelope. But several voters expressed a sense of unease in a climate in which threats against participatory democracy are commonplace on a national level, if not a local one.
John Arntz, the director of San Francisco’s Department of Elections, said he is aware of the reports.
“Some envelopes experienced these issues when moving through equipment at the” United States Postal Service, he said. “The USPS indicated that when they observed the issues, they manually processed the remaining packets.”
A USPS spokesperson said she could not immediately comment. This article will be updated when new information is presented.
Arntz added that “the condition of the exterior envelope does not affect whether the ballots are usable. As long as the four ballot cards and the return envelope are unaffected, voters can vote those ballots and return them to the Department. All voted ballots will be counted.”
The Department of Elections put out a release guiding voters with torn envelopes to check for all four ballot cards, a ballot return envelope and “an insert with voting instructions.”
It is not yet clear why this alleged mechanical difficulty arose in 2026 and not earlier. This November’s ballot is large, but San Francisco elections frequently feature lengthy ballots.
It is also not yet clear how many of San Francisco’s 535,787 ballots had been processed mechanically before the USPS purportedly noticed problems and switched to manual.
My ballot was the only one of the three to arrive at my household with a tear in the envelope. Luckily the ballot wasn’t damaged.
“All voted ballots will be counted.”
Including the ones Willie Brown dumps in the bay?
Both of the ballots sent to our place had the side seam ripped like in the photo, but otherwise the contents were intact.