RACINE - After hundreds of absentee ballots were reported missing, local officials met Wednesday to discuss how to protect the integrity of elections.

The city will send out nearly 800 new ballots to people who might not have received theirs to ensure that they get a chance to vote, said City Clerk Janice Johnson-Martin.

No one from either the city clerk's office or the Racine Post Office know what happened to a large box of ballots that had reportedly been delivered to the city's Downtown post office on Main Street earlier this month.

Johnson-Martin said she started receiving calls from residents who hadn't yet received their absentee ballots about a week after the city sent the first batch on Oct. 9. Johnson-Martin started receiving calls on Oct. 13, she said.

The city sent nearly 1,100 ballots to voters in Racine in that first mailing, Johnson-Martin said. A city employee had taken the ballots to the Main Street post office in four separate containers. Three of the containers were returned to the city, one went missing, Johnson-Martin said Wednesday.

A resident had called U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan's office and said she won't be able to vote because she thought someone already had her ballot, since she hadn't received it, Johnson-Martin said. Johnson-Martin said she called the woman to assure her that she would get to vote and that her vote would be counted.

Initially, she asked callers to be patient because she thought the Columbus Day holiday might have had something to do with the delay.

"When the calls still kept coming I had to investigate further. People were frantic that they wouldn't get to vote. I needed to calm them and ensure that they would," Johnson-Martin said. "We decided to re-mail ballots to people who had not returned a ballot."

The new ballots were accompanied by a letter explaining the situation to voters and asking them to return only one ballot.

Johnson-Martin said she doesn't expect anyone to return two ballots. If that does happen, safeguards are in place to ensure that only one ballot will be counted, Johnson-Martin said.

SUBHED: Unknown if ballots misplaced

Ron Farnsworth, Racine's post master, said the first he'd heard about any missing ballots was Tuesday night when he received a call from a reporter.

That night, Farnsworth visited all three of the city's post office branches to check if there was any trace of the missing ballots.

Post office employees also conducted a search at the Milwaukee processing plant, where all of Racine's mail is sent, Farnsworth said.

"At this time, we cannot presume conclusively that the post office misplaced anything," Farnsworth said. "We have a lot of measures in place so something like this doesn't happen."

The post office will now separate all absentee ballots by ZIP code and ship them to the appropriate city branch before mailing them out the next day, Farnsworth said. He hopes the added step will ensure there are no problems getting ballots to the right place.

Other than minor delays in getting ballots out, the city hasn't had problems with absentee ballots in past elections, Johnson-Martin said.

In addition to meeting with the city's post master Wednesday, Johnson-Martin said she met with the Racine County District Attorney and with the city attorney to explain the situation and how the city clerk's office planned to hand it.

Johnson-Martin said she and her staff want to handle this situation properly.

"We don't want either party to say we're doing something wrong. We're doing the best we can to do the right thing," she said.

The last day to request an absentee ballot by mail is Oct. 30. Residents can vote in person at City Hall up until Nov. 3.

As of Wednesday, the city had received 1,884 mailed requests for absentee ballots. In 2004, the city received a total of 2,026 requests.

To date, the city has a total of 48,289 voter registrations, Johnson-Martin said. The city has 118 new applications and one application pending.