Mystery boxes thought to contain ballots from a past election that were found in a downtown community centre have turned out to be unrelated to any election.

Three locked ballot boxes were discovered in a crawl space at Alexandra Park Community Centre on Tuesday and were opened on Wednesday. Police believed they were from an election in pre-amalgamation Etobicoke.

But when the boxes were opened at 14 division, police discovered they were Elections Canada Ballot Boxes that were used in citizen-led voting on issues with the Alexandra Park Co-Op in 1982.

The local community group likely used the old boxes because they could be secured. The only thing in the boxes were pamphlets addressing some of the issues facing the co-op at the time.

