Hundreds of absentee ballots mailed to voters in Racine have turned up missing. City Clerk Janice Johnson-Martin said 1100 ballots were mailed in four containers on October ninth. Three of the containers were returned, but the fourth disappeared and officials didn’t know it until they heard from voters asking where their ballots are.
One woman called Congressman Paul Ryan’s office worried that she couldn’t vote because someone had stolen her absentee ballot. Johnson-Martin later assured the woman that she can vote and her vote will be counted. The clerk’s office mailed about 800 replacement ballots. Anyone who gets two ballots have been told to use only one. Johnson-Martin says there are safeguards in place to prevent double-voting as a result of the mailing error.
The Post Office says it did nothing wrong. Racine postmaster Ron Farnsworth said workers checked the city’s postal branches and the regional mail processing center in Milwaukee and there’s no evidence the post office misplaced anything.