Secretary of State alleges fraud by group behind abortion rights ballot measure

Stock image via Adobe.

The Secretary of State’s office claims that fraudulent signatures helped put an abortion rights measure on Florida’s ballot, in the latest example of the state of Florida using official resources to fight the citizens’ initiative that could reverse current bans in the state.

That 348-page report, released late Friday, accuses Floridians Protecting Freedom, the committee behind Amendment 4, of paying out-of-state petition circulators known for submitting forged signatures of dead voters. That prompted Florida’s election crimes unit to open more than 100 criminal investigations.

“All should agree that there is no room for fraud when it comes to changing the Florida Constitution,” wrote Deputy Secretary of State Brad McVay. “We look forward to constructive dialogue on the adequacy of current law in addressing initiative petition fraud.”

The report on the ongoing investigation comes over a month after Gov. Ron DeSantis publicly asserted many of the petitions submitted to get Amendment 4 on the ballot were fraudulent. When asked in a press conference about reports the state’s election police unit was demanding information from local election supervisors about petitions, DeSantis on Sept. 10 defended the action.

“We now know that there are signatures that have been accepted by some of the Supervisors that don’t match the voter file, so they are investigating this, as they should,” he said.

The Florida Supreme Court in April approved Amendment 4 to appear on the ballot the same day the court upheld a ban signed by DeSantis on abortions six weeks into pregnancy.

Should Amendment 4 pass with 60% support or greater, language will be added to the state constitution reversing the state’s abortion ban and restoring Florida abortion rights effectively to the status quo before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Floridians Protecting Freedom in January announced it had gathered more than 911,000 valid signatures, 20,000 more than required, to qualify Amendment 4 for the ballot.

But the new report from the Secretary of State says that beginning in late 2023, the agency was “inundated” with complaints about Floridians Protecting Freedom’s tactics.

“The allegations included reports of paid FPF petition circulators signing petitions on behalf of deceased individuals, forging or misrepresenting elector signatures of petitions, using electors’ personal identifying information without consent, and perjury/false swearing,” the report states.

An investigation initially focused on non-verified signatures rejected by election officials, but the report said investigators more recently turned to seemingly fraudulent signatures that were still verified. Based on a high number of signatures gathered by “known fraudsters” but still verified in three counties, investigators started looking at accepted petitions in those locales as well.

The report said the Office of Elections Crimes and Security has already levied fines against Floridians Protecting Freedom over violations of election crimes. That includes a recently issued $328,000 fine that remains unpaid.

The report notes that paying petition circulators is a third-degree felony under Florida law, and said that law was broken by contractors working for the political committee.

“Several entities linked to FPF were so brazen as to advertise this illegal arrangement on social media websites,” the report alleges.

The report also said investigators have been “stymied” by an apparent lack of record-keeping by Floridians Protecting Freedom, saying it has demanded an accounting of petition collection that the political committee has refused to provide.

The report incidentally came down shortly after the Florida Supreme Court rejected arguments the DeSantis administration could be abusing its power to interfere with the Amendment 4 election fight. That involved a lawsuit trying to stop the Agency for Health Care Administration from publishing propaganda criticizing the ballot measure.

Democrats supporting Amendment 4 said this investigation was another example of DeSantis wrongly employing state resources with a political goal in mind.

“DeSantis is so obsessed with ending reproductive freedom in Florida that he has weaponized every state agency against us, is spending PUBLIC $ to campaign against (Amendment 4) and now — while we’re recovering from a hurricane — releasing late night reports, threatening to cancel our votes,” posted state Rep. Anna Eskamani, an Orlando Democrat, on X.

U.S. Reps. Maxwell Frost, an Orlando Democrat, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Weston Democrat, have already requested U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Department of Justice to intervene and stop the Governor from using his position to “sabotage, suppress votes, and campaign against” the ballot measure.

Ballots have already been printed statewide, with the full text of Amendment 4 on them. But the state could still challenge the validity and have the measure disqualified. That would invalidate the election results even if the measure passes in November.