Ypsilanti Township Mail

This page summarizes the history of and follows progress for a data-driven empirical test of the Ypsilanti Township mail service,
compared to neighboring postal services.
This data is intended to support our open congressional case on mail service concerns.

Test Results (updated as mail arrives)

• Tests began April 16^th, 2025
• On May 7^th 2025 we began to suspect some mail had been lost; we will clip maximum delivery time to 8 days
• On May 10^th 2025, this test reproduced eight day mail delivery times, shown here
• Mail delivery time variation is assoicated with return from the Pontiac Metroplex, not the time to Pontiac

The histogram below shows delivery time distributions, color-coded by the post office where the mail was deposited.

We estimate the project cost at roughly $2500 total (for details, see our plan).
Your financial support for our projects is very welcome:

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Background

This study is an outgrowth of a political gerrymandering study.

Ypsilanti Township is a mixed urban-suburban-rural jurisdiction in southeast Michigan's Washtenaw County, on the border of Wayne County - home to Detroit.
Ypsilanti City (a different municipality) carves out most of the township's north-west corner.
This township has the county's highest proportion of black citizens.

In late 2018, Alex Thomas (now Deputy Thomas) asked "why is the West Willow neighborhood split into two voting precincts?"
West Willow is a well-defined neighborhood of Ypsilanti Township, nestled inside major roads and the county's eastern border.

In terms of voting districts, the West Willow neighborhood was split into two precincts, 7 and 11.
Despite having potential poll sites, both of the neighborhood's polls were on the outside of the high speed roads that made its border:

Deputy Thomas' initial question produced many more questions.

Racially Disparate Impacts

We present only our most impactful findings; we summarize additional results here.
For any details on data or analysis, feel free to contact us.

Poll Location Racial Bias

Investigation raised a number of additional questions about precinct boundaries and polling locations,
but for the sake of brevity we present only our most significant conclusion:

We found racially disparate impact in Ypsilanti Township polling locations.

The map on below shows poll locations (as green circles) and concentrations of black voters:

We mapped each voter, calculated the straight line distance to their poll, and compared the distances for white vs black voters.
Black voters in Ypsilanti Township had a 22% larger median distance to their poll than their white neighbors:

We reviewed the results with the township clerk -
full credit and our heartfelt thanks go to former Ypsilanti Township Clerk, Heather Jarrel Roe, for her precinct redesign in 2022 that mitigated this issue.

Vote-By-Mail

In the intervening years between our findings above and today, Michiganders amended their state constitution to grant the right to vote by mail.
We hoped vote-by-mail could make the concern with physical polling locations irrelevant.
Vote-by-mail brings different issues, however.

Our data from local clerks showed that late ballot delivery was, by far, the main reason for rejecting a voter's ballot:

Because of that concern, we measured mail delivery time from every US post office in the county, multiple times:

Ypsilanti Township repeatedly showed the worst mail performance:

Ypsilanti Township has the county's highest proportion of minorities;
this mail service difference also imparts a racially disparate impact.

Mail Tests

Now we are running a study of U.S. mail service.
Our test & analysis plan and detailed timing are available online.

We have evidence that mail-in ballot delivery may be slower than normal mail..

Unfortunately, the private nature of ballots makes them difficult (but not impossible) to test.
We are working on it.

From/To Locations

This map shows the locations we mail from (in red) and to (in blue):

• from: Ypsilanti Twp 48197 (our test subject)
• from: Ypsilanti City 48197 - urban/same zip code, 1.5 miles north
• from: Augusta Twp 48197 - rural/same zip code, 5 miles south-east
• from: Ann Arbor 48105 for comparison
• to: Ypsilanti 48197 same zip code, business address
• to: Ann Arbor 48104 residential address

Mail travels to the Pontiac Metroplex first, and then returns to Washtenaw County.
Post office employees suggest the most likely source of variation is: personnel.
So far, the observed variation in delivery times is entirely due to the return leg.