When Becca Shapiro was waiting in line at the post office in Brooklyn last week, the man in front of her made an unusual request: he wanted to buy 1,000 postcard stamps.
At first, Shapiro was confused. “I was like, ‘Why is this guy sending so many postcards?’” she told THE CITY.
But other people in line immediately understood: the man was part of a postcard-sending campaign aimed at mobilizing swing state voters to the polls. Other customers in line had been sending postcards, too. Soon, they were talking about the ways they had gotten involved with the election. Shapiro described it as a “Kamala love fest.”
“Brooklyn, at least my part of Brooklyn, could not be any bluer,” said Shapiro, who lives in Park Slope. “It felt like people are really doing their part.”
Unfortunately for the man seeking a thousand stamps, he wouldn’t get any from that office. According to Shapiro, the clerk told him that they had been sold out for weeks.
At post offices all over the five boroughs THE CITY visited — and especially in Democratic strongholds like the Upper West Side and Park Slope — postcard stamps have been selling out at an unprecedented pace. According to multiple postal workers, they suspect that’s due to New Yorkers taking part in postcard-mailing campaigns ahead of the November election.
Campaigns like Postcards to Swing States recruit volunteers to mail handwritten postcards to Democratic and independent voters in states like Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. According to Reid McCollum, the program outreach director of the political action committee running that campaign, New York has the most volunteers of any state except California.
“I’m not surprised that some post offices have run out of postcard stamps,” McCollum said. This year, Postcards to Swing States has signed up volunteers to send 40.3 million postcards. In New York City alone, 10,000 volunteers have signed up.
Even though postcards could technically be mailed with letter stamps, there’s one key advantage to using the correct stamp: it’s cheaper. Regular stamps cost $0.73 and postcard stamps cost $0.56. That can make a big difference; the Brooklyn man who wanted to buy 1,000 postcard stamps stood to save $170.
Amy Mosedale, an Upper West Side resident, has had mixed success purchasing the special stamps for postcards. She’s writing postcards with her 92-year-old mother, also an Upper West Sider, to send to voters in North Carolina. Over the course of the last few months, Mosedale has purchased postcard stamps in bulk from her closest post office, but has also had to venture to other locations on the West Side.
“They have run out of stamps, it’s true,” she said. She’s gone “on my mom’s behalf” in her hunt, buying countless bundles of postage. Her estimate? She couldn’t guess — “a lot,” she said.
Mosedale hopes that the postcard writing will make a difference. “It feels like something. I hope it is,” she said. “People aren’t used to getting handwritten things in the mail anymore.”
One postal worker in Manhattan, who declined to give their name, said that they’ve been trying to stay on top of ordering the stamps, but it’s been impossible to keep up with demand. “People come in here and buy 300, 400” at a time, the worker said.
“In one week, we sold about 1,500 postcard stamps,” the worker told THE CITY. Another post office in Brooklyn sold out of 6,000 postcard stamps just last week.
From Arizona to Alaska
According to the United States Postal Service, the problem is local.
“The Postal Service is not aware of any nationwide shortage of postcard rate stamps,” said USPS communications specialist Amy Gibbs in a statement. “Individual post offices may be out of stock or low on stock, but customers can always order from usps.com/stamps or at 844-737-7826 for delivery to their homes.”
But at least one postcard-writer far outside the five boroughs had the same issue, they told THE CITY. Carrie Watterson of Arizona tried to send her postcards while she was on a business trip in Alaska, but the Anchorage post office she visited had only about 60 stamps for sale. That was not enough to cover the huge stack she had ready to send.
“They just don’t normally stock them because nobody sends postcards anymore,” the clerk told her, Watterson recalled. She said that her friend in Colorado had warned her that the search might be harder than anticipated: in Denver, there were no postcard stamps to be found, she said.
Others in New York City had to go far outside the city to find postage. Kimberly Williams of Brooklyn signed up to write postcards while Joe Biden was still the Democratic nominee — but she was overjoyed when Harris announced.
“Truly if it were an urn of Joe Biden’s ashes, I was going to vote for Joe Biden,” she said. “But it’s such a good feeling. I’m very excited.”
Williams ordered stamps online, but she says they never came. Ultimately, her father brought her 200 postcard stamps from his home in Florida while they were both visiting family in Georgia.
“I did them in chunks of 10 here, 20 there,” Williams said, explaining how she was able to manage writing hundreds of postcards by hand. “It was over a long period of time.”
