Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick has a little problem on his hands. It seems that 19,000 welfare recipients who were sent voter registration forms cannot be located.

Governor Deval Patrick is downplaying the Department of Transitional Assistance admission that it could not locate 19,000 people who have either been receiving welfare benefits or have applied for them, saying the number represents a “broader class of people than those who are actually on the rolls today.”

At a news conference, the Governor kept referring to the number of people whose addresses could not be located as just “four percent” of the mailings.

This was discovered after nearly half a million letters were sent out to settle a lawsuit filed against Massachusetts last year in part by the liberal think tank, “Demos.”

The Department of Transitional Assistance says 19,000 letters came back, marked ”Return to Sender.”