By AP
East St. Louis, IL – The former mayor of East St. Louis has gotten a lot of Chicago-area support in his push to run for the U.S. Senate as an independent.
Carl Officer filed petitions signed by 34,000 people. He needs 25,000 valid signatures to qualify for the November ballot.
The Illinois State Board of Elections said most of officer's signatures came from Cook County and surrounding counties, rather than southern Illinois.
Officer is African-American and a democrat. If he gets on the ballot, he might get votes that otherwise would go to democratic candidate Alexi Giannoulias.
Under Officer's watch, East St. Louis struggled with crumbling infrastructure, poverty, high crime and corruption.
