LEWISTON – Getting an early start might not have worked out well locally for a national get-out-the vote effort.

City officials said they had about a dozen complaints Tuesday about misleading door hangers printed and placed by ACT Maine that directed them to the wrong polling places. Bill Brown, communications director for ACT Maine, said his group regretted the confusion.

“Reports started coming in the second I walked into the office Tuesday,” Brown said. “We hope it didn’t keep anyone away from the polls, but we did take steps to fix the situation.”

Brown said the progressive political action group distributed 120,000 pieces of literature in Maine, urging voters to get to the polls on Election Day. He estimated the group distributed more than 10,000 pieces in Lewiston-Auburn.

They began a week ago, using voter lists and ward maps obtained from the city clerk’s office. But Brown said he didn’t know when the group got that information.

The city redrew its ward lines on Sept. 9, and that moved as many as 5,000 voters into different wards. City Clerk Kathy Montejo said she believed ACT Maine must have picked up the lists before Sept. 9.

“We really applaud the effort,” she said. “We just wish they used the correct information.”

Montejo said the group picked up corrected lists and maps on Friday. They didn’t make the correct changes, however, and began putting door hangers on Lewiston homes Monday night using the old information.

“The really frustrating part for us is that they had the chance to get the correct information out and they still didn’t,” Montejo said.

She said the group collected some of the incorrect door hangers Tuesday morning.

“But we don’t know if they were too late for some people,” Montejo said. “We only got a dozen or so calls, but we don’t know how many people went to the wrong polling place and then just gave up.”

ACT Maine wasn’t alone in the confusion. The Republican Party sent e-mails to Lewiston voters Monday morning that also contained incorrect poll locations.

But Brown said the group was pleased with the overall effort.

“We put out thousands of pieces of information over the four days leading up to the election, but we only had problems with a fraction of them,” he said. “It’s pretty significant that there were only a few mistakes.”