Gabrielle Russon
A new lawsuit filed by anti-abortion rights advocates wants to cancel this November’s vote on whether to enshrine abortion rights protections in the state constitution because of “widespread voter fraud.”
“When all fictitious, forged, illegally obtained, or otherwise invalid signatures are removed from consideration, Amendment 4 failed to reach the constitutionally required number of signatures for ballot placement,” the lawsuit said, asking for the votes not to be counted in the Nov. 5 election.
St. Lucie County residents Hope Hoffman and Terri Kellogg, as well as Taylor County residents Chelsey Davis and Lorien Hershberger, are represented by former Florida Supreme Court Justice Alan Lawson on the complaint, filed less than three weeks before the election.
Floridians Protecting Freedom (FPF), the political committee supporting Amendment 4, has denied wrongdoing and argued the petitions used to get placement on the Nov. 5 ballot were already validated by Elections Supervisors and Florida’s Department of State. They accuse Gov. Ron DeSantis of deploying state taxpayer resources to fight abortion because he is personally against it.
“These lawsuits, coming on the heels of the State of Florida’s latest attempt to undermine Floridians’ right to vote on Amendment 4, are desperate,” Lauren Brenzel, Campaign Director for Yes on 4, said in a statement Thursday. “Ask yourself, why is this happening now, over half a year after over 997,000 petitions were verified by the state of Florida and with less than a month until the election these anti-abortion extremists want to relitigate the petition collection process? Simply put, it’s because our campaign is winning and the government and its extremist allies are trying to do everything they can to stop Floridians from having the rights they deserve.”
The new 388-page lawsuit is centered around a DeSantis administration report released last week that alleges FPF illegally paid circulators based on the number of signatures collected.
“The report also includes sweeping generalizations about the petition drive without providing data to back them up,” the Tampa Bay Times reported.
The Orange County lawsuit comes one day after FPF sued a pair of Health Department officials for threatening TV stations that are playing Amendment 4 advertisements.
Amendment 4 seeks to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. Currently, Florida bans abortions after six weeks in most cases. To pass, it needs at least 60% of the vote.
2 comments
Ron Ogden
October 17, 2024 at 9:09 am
From the lawsuit: ” 69. Over the past 24months, according to campaign finance records, FPF has paid PCI more than $27 million for petition initiative efforts. 70. PCIs practice is to pay petition circulators per signature. See, e.g., John Ryan Paying for signatures used to be illegal. Now it’s making this Californian rich, NPR (Aug. 13, 2016) available athttps://bitly/3TAXF0f. On information and belief, PCI incentivized its petition circulator’s signature-collecting efforts in Florida by hiring contractors that paid per signature or were paid per signature. They did this even though it is a third-degree felony to pay petition circulators based on the number of signatures he or she collects. § 104.186, Fla. Stat.”
“Res ipsa loquitur”, as the lawyers say. The thing speaks for itself (even though the phrase relates particularly to civil negligence). In this case it is patently obvious that if the records are correct the organization paying for signatures broke the law and rendered the petitions invalid and, consequently, the amendment invalid. I hope the court rules quickly, so we do not have to waste any more time on this evil-intended ballot measure.
Michael K
October 17, 2024 at 9:10 am
The only fraud being perpetrated comes from our governor, who thinks only he knows bestm, and refuses to accept the will of the people.