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More than 700 mayors from across Catalonia gathered in Barcelona on Saturday to voice their support for a planned independence referendum that Madrid has declared illegal, Euronews TV Channel reported.

The source reminds that earlier in the week, Spanish prosecutors summoned these mayors for questioning and warned them that if they helped with preparations for the vote — scheduled for Oct. 1 — they could be arrested and charged with civil disobedience, abuse of office and misuse of public funds.

The mayors met with Catalonia’s regional head Carles Puigdemont in a show of defiance, while Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy called for a return to “rationality and legality” and promised to block the vote.

More than three-quarters of Catalonia’s mayors — including Barcelona’s — say they will help set up polling stations. But police are now hunting for ballot boxes to stop the vote.

So far, 740 of 948 municipal leaders have said they would allow municipal spaces to be used for the referendum, according to the Association of Municipalities for Independence (AMI).

Spanish police have raided several print shops and newspaper offices in recent days in a hunt for voting papers, ballot boxes and leaflets to be used for the referendum.

Catalonia’s top court even issued on Friday a warning to seven newspapers not to publish campaign notices for the referendum.