Absentee Anxiety: Harvard Students Struggle to Vote by Mail

After dozens of Harvard students were unable to cast their votes in the 2024 election Tuesday due to missing or delayed absentee ballots, several undergraduates from battleground states resorted to desperate measures — even flying home to cast in-person votes.

Mallory E. Rogers ’25, who applied to get a mail-in ballot but never received it, instead voted in-person in Georgia on Tuesday.

“I just didn’t want to deal with the anxiety of not knowing if my vote was going to count,” Rogers said. “It felt like it was necessary to go home and vote in-person and have that security of knowing.”

Sammy Duggasani ’25, who also returned to Georgia to vote, called the ability to fly home to vote a “privilege.”

“Not everybody has this luxury of flying back home to vote,” Duggasani said, adding that he was “fortunate” to find a $70 plane ticket. “This took a lot of time out of my week.”

But according to Duggasani, a former Crimson Magazine editor, his professors have been accommodating — he said his Computer Science 109 professor offered a problem set extension to anyone going home to vote in a “pivotal” state.

“If I were from California — or Texas, even — I wouldn’t feel as compelled to find a way around the mail-in process, or some backup plan,” he added.

Cody A. Vasquez ’25, who is from Maricopa County, Arizona, canceled his absentee ballot after 14 days of waiting — only for it to arrive in the Cabot House mail center on the 15th day, just last week. Vasquez ordered a second ballot, which never arrived.

“It was the biggest pit in my stomach because I had been waiting so long, and then I finally canceled the ballot and it’s sitting there, right in my mailbox,” he said.

To make up for his missing ballot, Vasquez said he reached out to friends from home encouraging them to vote.

“I got 14 of my friends in Arizona to vote, which makes me feel a little bit better,” he said.

“At some moments I was so close to flying home and voting in person, but the tickets as of yesterday were like $550, and like a twelve hour travel day,” he added.

Vasquez said upon calling the Cabot House mail center, he was told the average wait time for packages was 24 to 48 hours, and that “over the past couple of weeks they’ve been prioritizing ballots that they may have received.”

Joseph A. Johnson ’26 said he had similar concerns about the loss of his Missouri mail-in ballot, which never reached the voting center after he sent it through the Pforzheimer House mail system.

“It’s only speculation what happened to my mail, but apparently it was never picked up,” Johnson said. “At least during election time, they should be getting the mail picked up every day.”

Johnson said the outcome was doubly disappointing considering that “the College pushes voting really, really hard.”

“They’re always pushing us to sign up for voting, to sign up for mail-in voting, and the fact that my vote isn’t counted makes all of that effort totally futile,” Johnson said.

Harvard Campus Services Director of Communications Michael Conner wrote in a Tuesday statement that Harvard University Mail Services receives mail from the USPS.

“Once on campus, absentee ballots are prioritized and delivered the same day,” Conner wrote. “HUMS has continued to receive absentee ballots from the USPS through the afternoon on election day and those ballots have been delivered.”

Anaïs D. Colin ’25, whose Texas absentee ballot never arrived, said it was particularly disappointing not to vote in this year’s election because “it feels like democracy is on the table.”

“It’s also the first Black woman that we could be voting in as president, which is really exciting, and it would’ve been a very historic election to be able to be a part of,” Colin said. “I am upset in that sense, even from a symbolic perspective of not having been able to cast my vote.”

—Staff writer Hiral M. Chavre can be reached at hiral.chavre@thecrimson.com.

—Staff writer Azusa M. Lippit can be reached at azusa.lippit@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @azusalippit or on Threads @azusalippit.