Drew Wilson
A proposed ballot amendment that would make it harder for future constitutional amendments to pass has collected enough signatures to secure a spot on the 2020 ballot.
Keep Our Constitution Clean had collected 768,096 valid petition signatures as of Wednesday evening, according to the Florida Division of elections website. Constitutional amendments need 766,200 signatures to make the ballot.
The petition drive has quickly added signatures over the past week. On Thursday, it had about 686,000 signatures and by Tuesday evening it was just 12,658 short of hitting the requirement.
In addition to the hitting the threshold for overall signatures, the political committee has also satisfied signature requirements in more than half of Florida’s 27 congressional districts — another condition that must me met before amendments can go before voters.
The committee is pushing a measure that would require future constitutional amendments to be passed by voters twice before they are included in the Florida Constitution.
Increasing the necessary rounds of public approval, from one round, would make Florida’s constitution one of the hardest state constitutions to change.
In October, a survey conducted by St. Pete Polls found the proposed amendment was backed by 49% of voters while 30% were opposed and 21% were undecided.
Constitutional amendments need the approval of 60% of voters to pass.
