Obama reveals how he made Secret Service ‘nervous’ by choosing to 'walk to a mailbox' to cast his ballot

MADISON, WISCONSIN: Barack Obama has officially cast his vote in the 2024 presidential race, and he did it by walking to a mailbox while making Secret Service agents "nervous."

The former president revealed that he cast his ballot while speaking at a rally for Vice President Kamala Harris in Madison, Wisconsin. The crowd couldn’t have been more excited when he shared the news, “I voted yesterday.”

Barack Obama says he made Secret Service 'nervous'

Barack Obama didn’t just vote; he took a little stroll while doing it. He explained that he filled out his mail-in ballot back home in Chicago and then decided to take a walk to drop it off.

“I walked, which I don’t always get a chance to do, and Secret Service got nervous, but I said, ‘Nah, let’s walk to a mailbox,’” he told the rally attendees.

It’s not every day that a former president gets to just casually walk down the street, and it’s safe to say the Secret Service was probably on high alert during that little outing.

While Obama had some fun recounting his voting experience, he also upheld the importance of casting a ballot in this election. He urged the crowd in Wisconsin to not only vote themselves but also to help their friends and family make voting plans.

“Because together, we’ve got a chance to choose a new generational leadership in this country and start building a better, stronger, fair, more hopeful America now," he stressed.

The former president also joked how voting by mail might be a bit of a mystery to some of the younger folks.

“My younger staff was like, ‘What’s that blue thing?’” he quipped. “And I said, ‘That’s a mailbox.’”

The crowd ate it up, and it’s easy to imagine Gen-Zers scratching their heads about old-school mailboxes in a world where most things happen online.

Of course, Obama didn’t just stop at the rally. He took to social media to continue his push for mail-in voting and posted about how simple the process was. “I voted by mail – it was easy and a great excuse to say hi to some neighbors,” he wrote on X.

He added, “If you’re voting by mail like me, get your ballot in the mail right away. No matter how you vote, make sure you have a plan and get it done.”

When Barack Obama's administration removed mailboxes

Barack Obama’s push for mail-in voting also brought back memories of the debates around mailboxes from past elections.

In the lead-up to the 2020 election, then-president Donald Trump faced backlash over the US Postal Service cutting back on services — including removing mail collection boxes. It stirred up a lot of controversy, especially since so many people were relying on mail-in voting during the pandemic.

But here’s the thing— it happened a lot more during Obama’s time in office.

Reports from the USPS inspector general provide some context. During Obama’s second term, thousands of mailboxes disappeared from the streets. An August 2016 report noted, “Nationally the number of collection boxes declined by more than 12,000 in the past five years.”

Back then, some people weren’t too happy about it and felt like the Postal Service had gone overboard.

“Some customers have complained the Postal Service has gone too far and removed most collection boxes, except those at the Post Office. In addition, they have questioned whether any cost savings result from collection box removals," the report stated.

And it wasn’t just a few complaints here and there. The report revealed that during a 17-month period in Obama’s second term, “322 out-of-service boxes were permanently removed from the street without Eastern Area approval or public notification to customers.”

But there’s more to the story. The same 2016 report — along with another one from September 2017 — explained that there were actually some valid reasons behind pulling mailboxes off the streets. It turns out that a lot of those mailboxes were barely getting any use and removing them could have saved the Postal Service a good chunk of change, Fox News reported.

In fact, the reports suggested that even more mailboxes probably should have been removed over the years, which could have cut costs by hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. The total number of removed mailboxes climbed from 12,000 in the 2016 report to 14,000 by 2017.