In the wake of the recent election, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has called for significant changes to the state’s petition and amendment process.
This announcement follows allegations of fraudulent activities related to Amendment 4, which aimed to limit government interference with abortion access.
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During a recent press conference, Governor DeSantis highlighted the issue.
“To have the amount of fraudulent petitions that were verified as fraudulent by the secretary of state’s investigation for Amendment 4, that is a huge, huge problem,” DeSantis said.
He also emphasized the need for election integrity, suggesting that the current system is being manipulated by special interests.
“Our Constitution should not be for sale to the highest bidder,” he said.
A lawsuit filed in Orange County last year points to a state investigation that reportedly found several potential violations of state law during the signature-collection process for Amendment 4.
These allegations include:
- Pay-per-signature scheme: The investigation report says that multiple reports were received of a “pay-per-signature” scheme in which petition circulators were paid for each signature they were able to obtain, which could be a violation of state law.
- Submissions through PCI: The report adds that circulators would submit FPF petition forms to PCI, not FPF, which could be a violation of state law.
- False petitions: Circulators reportedly submitted petition forms that contained perjury and false attestations. The lawsuit says this appears to be the result of paid circulators outsourcing petition-gathering responsibilities to unregistered circulators and falsely searing that they witnessed electors signing these outsourced petitions.
- Petitions by fraud: The lawsuit says that investigators discovered some otherwise valid petitions forms were obtained via fraud. At least one subcontractor reportedly told circulators to tell prospective signatories that the petition was to “keep the state of Florida from taking away women’s rights,” not necessarily that the petition was about “abortion.”
- Bulk identity theft: Per the lawsuit, investigators found that petition gatherers had engaged in “bulk identity theft” with circulators using publicly available personal identifying information to complete petition forms without electors’ consent. According to the plaintiffs, even election staff in the supervisor of elections offices in Martin and Osceola counties had their signatures forged on submitted petition forms.
However, the ACLU has pushed back against these claims.
“The state already had in its possession some 300 petitions that it deemed to be fraudulent, which it did not turn to the campaign but gave back to the alleged fraudulent petition category in what seems to be some sort of a setup to see if they would be turned back in,” Bacardi Jackson, executive director of the ACLU of Florida, said in an interview. “And this is in a campaign where nearly 1 million verified signatures were gathered and has one of the highest levels of verification (among) any recent petition, any recent initiative.”
She also criticized efforts by Florida officials for efforts to push back against the Amendment 4 campaign.
“It’s a sad state of affairs that we are in a place where we have a government seeking to increase barriers to direct democratic participation by our voters,” Jackson said.
The ACLU argues that these proposed reforms could limit Floridians' ability to directly impact their government and concentrate power in the hands of a few.
“If we had gotten the same percentage in almost any other state (57%), we would have seen a victory for the people," Jackson said. “Instead, the governor is using these vague and spurious allegations that have no foundation.”
Listen to the governor’s full press conference here: