Yalies’ mail-in ballots returned after sending them to Package Center
Some students who requested mail-in ballots this year have yet to receive them, mainly due to confusion about where to request these ballots to.

Yale Daily News
As Yalies look to cast their votes from New Haven, some have yet to receive their mail-in ballots.
Several students this year mistakenly requested their ballot be sent to the Barnes & Noble Student Package Center, which is not able to process paper mail.
Clarissa Tan ’26 was among these students. Tan lives in Nebraska and decided, prior to learning about the early voting process, to look into requesting a ballot by mail.
“I wasn’t really sure where to do that, so I just Googled,” Tan said. “They asked me for an address to mail it to us. I was like: Yale tells you, you should mail things to Barnes & Noble, that’s where I’ve been getting packages for two years. And so I was like: okay, makes sense. I’ll mail it to here.”
Eager to cast her first presidential vote, Tan described how, after over a month of waiting for her ballot, she finally checked her mail’s status after her friends had already received and returned their ballots. Her request form noted that her ballot had been shipped, but when Tan went in person to the Student Package Center, she was informed that since the Student Package Center cannot receive paper mail, her ballot was bounced back to sender.
Because Tan checked her ballot’s status, she realized it had bounced from the Package Center and instead voted early and in person over October break.
“If I hadn’t gone back home, I don’t think I would have been able to vote this season,” Tan said.
The USPS does not recognize the package center as a valid address to receive paper mail.
“Paper mail that was addressed to the package center was returned to sender,” Associate Director for Student Life Nina Fattore told the News. “USPS does not notify the Student Package Center that this has occurred.”
Quinn Luong ’26 also mailed his ballot to the Student Package Center based on information he received from his friend by word of mouth. When he realized this was the incorrect address, he began a frantic search for his missing ballot. He described waiting on the phone on hold with his county’s bureau of elections, finally leaving a voicemail and receiving no response.
“I felt really guilty, because I’m from Pennsylvania, my vote really matters. So I was like, ‘Oh my God, where is my ballot now?’” Loung said. “Okay, I can mail a mail-in ballot, but am I sure it’s gonna be received? No.”
Alex Moore ’26, president of Yale Votes: A Student Initiative, told the News that unreceived mail-in ballots have been a common issue for students.
“We’ve even talked to a lot of people who properly addressed them to their residential colleges and still had them rejected,” Moore said.
He added that mail-in voting is especially important for Yale students.
“Voting in Connecticut is not a very powerful way to vote, and many students live in states where their votes have a lot more power. So we encourage almost all students to vote outside of Connecticut if they can.”
Some students who faced challenges with mail-in voting said they did so due to insufficient information. Luong criticized the University’s communication.
“I think that they should have done more media campaigns to let everyone know that we should mail it to the receiving office of every residential college,” said Luong. “I feel like it should be better publicized, it shouldn’t be that hard to find it out.”
Moore added that he is also dissatisfied with Yale’s mail system.
“Two of the 14 residential colleges don’t even use Yale mail. For some reason, they just receive mail directly, which is kind of strange. And so when we talk to the administration, they don’t even necessarily know what’s going on either,” he said.
Fattore told the News that the Package Center’s inability to process paper mail for most students has been standard procedure since its creation. She declined to say whether Yale could create a system that would allow all students to receive paper mail.
Yale University requires students to purchase a P.O. box with USPS in order to receive regular paper mail. According to Fattore, however, the United States Government does not allow federal forms such as mail-in ballots to be delivered to a non-residential address, which includes P.O. boxes. Yale’s website does not mention that students cannot address their ballot to their P.O. box.
Saybrook resident Aruna Balasubramanian ’26 rents a P.O. box at Yale and used that address in requesting her mail-in ballot. She never received her ballot, and now, the week before the election, she is considering flying home to Pennsylvania to make sure her vote counts.
Moore expressed frustration that Yale has “not advertised almost at all” to students that they should request their absentee ballot at their residential college.
Incorrect addresses were not the only complications in the voting process, according to Moore. Some students properly addressed their ballots to their residential college office, but the USPS still bounced back their mail. Others faced issues registering in their state.
Yale Votes has been assisting students in navigating the process of voting while at Yale, Moore added.
“We’ve hosted more than 50 tabling events this semester alone. So we’ve been all over and our stats show that we’ve probably talked to like 2,000 students about voting this semester, so in person, face-to-face is definitely the biggest way that we try to spread that info,” said Moore.
Additionally, Yale Votes sends out a newsletter that identifies misinformation and provides approachable graphics and instructions for how students can cast their votes.
However, some students are uncertain whether these initiatives are enough to ensure voting is accessible and encouraged at Yale.
“It’s an issue because a lot of people aren’t on the mailing list. If you’re already signed up for the Yale Votes mailing list, you probably are trying to figure out how to vote, whereas people who don’t vote and don’t actively seek out that information just aren’t getting it,” Tan said. “Let’s say I’m a student who’s really busy, or I’m a student who doesn’t care that much. At the first sign of confusion or hurdle, I’m just gonna give up and just decide not to vote.”
A survey conducted by the News of the Yale community found that 71 percent of respondents planned to vote by mail in 2024.