Doug Hendrickson called the newspaper about 11:30 a.m. saying he and two women were given the wrong ballots after they checked in to vote.

Hendrickson said when he got into the voting booth he saw that it was a ballot for the town of Naples and immediately left the booth and told an election worker.

Lois Konvalinka, who was just entering a voting booth, heard Hendrickson's comment and realized she, too, had a Naples ballot. Hendrickson said another woman, whose name he did not know, also had a Naples ballot. All three were given Wiscasset ballots.

Hendrickson said he started to question election workers about how this could have happened.

"I told them this was fraud," he said. "But I don't think they (the election workers) knew it. The ballots were sealed in plastic."

Hendrickson said when he got home he made several phone calls to newspapers and Democratic party offices to alert them to the problem.

"I can see that when these ballots get to Augusta, they're going to pitch them," Hendrickson said, referring to any Naples ballots that arrive in the Wiscasset ballot box.

"There should be an investigation of this," Hendrickson said.

"We don't expect this kind of thing to happen in Maine," Konvalinka said.

Doug Dunbar, a spokesman for the Secretary of State's office, said that Elections Division officials have been in touch with Wiscasset Town Clerk Sandra Johnson.

"They (election workers in Wiscasset) are double and triple checking to make sure there are no more of the Naples ballots," he said.

Asked what happens if Naples ballots are found inside the ballot box after the polls close, Dunbar said the state will review the situation at that time. He said he's not sure if the entire ballot would be thrown out, or whether the votes for president and the two referendum questions would be counted, and the votes for other candidates thrown out.

Dunbar said the error would have been made when the packages of 50 were sealed up at the printers.

Johnson said Tuesday around noontime that she was told by the Secretary of State's office that the bar code (square black marks that run along the edge of the ballots) were the same for both Wiscasset and Naples, making it impossible for the machine reading them to tell the difference between the two ballots.

Johnson said when the Naples ballots were discovered, election workers looked through the rest of the package and found that all were Naples ballots except for three on the bottom, which were Wiscasset ballots.

"They (the Secretary of State's office) told me to pull them and mark them," Johnson said. "They said they will handle it if there has to be a recount."

The newspaper contacted Naples Town Clerk Judy Whynot, who said she was unaware of the Naples ballots landing in Wiscasset, and said they have not seen any Wiscasset ballots mixed in with theirs.