Investigators are looking into a stash of applications for absentee ballots that were discovered in a local post office box last week.
More than 1,500 requests for absentee ballots mailed to a post office box were piling up at the Rock Island Post Office on 11th Street, and had not been forwarded to the Circuit Clerk's office for processing.
"There actually were 1,511 applications for absentee ballots just sitting in the box. Nobody had claimed them and initially when we were notified, they had not even paid for the box," said John McGehee, Rock Island County States Attorney.
A third party group had solicited the requests from voters, but had not returned them to the Clerk's office which would issue the actual absentee ballot.
"Our concern was that voters would not receive a ballot," said McGehee, who says he has talked with Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan about the case.
McGehee says it all started after the Clerk's office started getting inquiries from voters wondering what happened to their absentee ballots they had requested.
"They asked where's my ballot. I sent my application in, where's my ballot?" McGehee said.
One of the mailers sent by the third party lead to the post office box.
He says the P.O. Box was registered to a group called The Rock Island County Voter Center, and may have ties with another organization that could be trying to "suppress Democratic votes", he said.
McGehee says he's been told there have been similar issues in Kankakee and DuPage Counties.
"Something doesn't seem right. Whether there's fraud or not, we don't know. All we know for certain is they were returned to a box and they were building up," he said.