The Illinois Attorney General's Office is investigating alleged election fraud in Madison County, by appointment of Chief Circuit Judge Bill Mudge.
"This is an ongoing investigation and additional information is not available at this time," a spokesperson for the AG's office said Sept. 28.
Last month, State's Attorney Tom Haine asked for a special prosecutor for an investigation involving mail-in ballots for write-in candidates following the June 28 primary election. Haine sought outside assistance, claiming a conflict of interest existed with his office.
County Clerk Debbie Ming-Mendoza is the only public official in Madison County to confirm on the record that voter fraud was suspected when ballots were tabulated on primary election day.
The case was sealed by Mudge, who has also denied a request to unseal it.
When asked Sept. 27 if write-in ballots could be made available for viewing, Ming-Mendoza said the suspicious write-in ballots were not counted and that they have been "impounded."
Ming-Mendoz has said she does not have information on the investigation itself, but explained that a team of Republican and Democrat election judges raised concerns after discovering the same handwriting for write-in candidates while processing mail-in ballots in the Democratic primary election.
“It was the handwriting that drew their concerns,” she said.
Ming-Mendoza said that roughly 39 ballots were flagged and came from various precincts in Madison County, with most coming from Venice. She said those ballots were not counted in the election totals.
She added that similar handwriting among ballots can be a normal occurrence, and wouldn’t immediately raise concerns if the voter indicated on the ballot card that he or she received assistance. However, she said the certification envelope for the ballots in question did not have any indication of assistance.
She said that after the election judges discovered the suspected fraudulent ballots, she immediately notified law enforcement.
“In my mind, the process worked,” Ming-Mendoza said in a previous interview. “The judges saw something that caused them concern. They notified me. I notified law enforcement.”
Ming-Mendoza did not specify who the write-in candidates were on the ballots in question.
While anyone can be written in regardless of candidacy, there were two official write-in candidates running on the Democratic ticket for circuit judge in Madison County.
Barry Julian and Ebony Huddleston ran as write-in candidates because their nominating petitions were rejected months before the primary by a county electoral board over dating errors. Their petitions indicated that their signatures were gathered on a start date of Jan. 13.
However, the Judicial Circuits Redistricting Act of 2022, which was supported in the legislature only by Democrats and signed into law by Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Jan. 7, established that petitions could not be circulated earlier than 15 days after enactment - or beginning Jan. 22.
Julian and Huddleston, however, earned enough write-in votes to be placed on the General Election ballot, according to primary election results.