TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida State Police are visiting the homes of voters who signed a petition to put an abortion rights amendment on the ballot in November as part of a state investigation into alleged petition fraud.
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has defended the police who visited the homes of Floridians who signed the petition. Critics say the investigation is a brazen attempt to intimidate voters in the nation’s third-largest state into protecting abortion access — and that it came long after the deadline to challenge petition signatures.
Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a professor of constitutional and election law at Stetson University Law School, said she is not aware of any legal precedent the state could use to challenge the signatures after the deadline.
“The Florida Supreme Court has already put the abortion issue on the ballot in April 2024,” Torres-Spelliscy told The Associated Press. “So this effort to question signatures at this point seems long overdue.”
Here’s what you need to know about Florida’s abortion initiative and the state’s investigation into the petitions behind it.
What Would Florida’s Abortion Amendment Mean?
Florida law currently bans most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, before many women even know they are pregnant. If approved by 60 percent of voters, the ballot initiative known as Amendment 4 would make abortions legal until the fetus is viable, as determined by the patient’s health care provider.
The proposed amendment states, “No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability has been achieved or when necessary to protect the health of the patient, as determined by the patient’s health care provider.” It provides one exception, already in the state constitution: Parents must be notified before their minor children can have an abortion.
How did campaigners get the amendment on the ballot?
To qualify for the November ballot, supporters had to collect more than 891,000 signatures from Florida voters. In January, state election officials confirmed that the campaign had passed that milestone, ultimately submitting more than 997,000 verified signatures — 100,000 more than it needed. That margin is far more than the 36,000 signatures that state officials say they are reviewing as part of a broad investigation by the Florida Department of State into alleged petition fraud.
In April, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the bill would go before voters in November, rejecting the state’s attorney general’s argument that the proposed amendment is misleading and that voters don’t realize how far it would expand abortion access.
Why are government officials investigating the petitions?
According to a letter from Deputy Secretary of State Brad McVay shared with the AP, the State Bureau of Election Crimes and Security is “concerned” about allegations that forged signatures were submitted and then verified as valid by elections supervisors.
Police are visiting some voters to question them about signing a petition to get the abortion initiative on the ballot. And state officials have sent requests to county-level election supervisors to collect thousands of petition signatures for review as part of an investigation into alleged petition fraud, according to reporting by the Tampa Bay Times.
DeSantis defended the investigation, saying police found evidence that some of the alleged voter signatures were from deceased individuals.
“They are investigating this, as they should be,” DeSantis said Tuesday. “Our tolerance for voter fraud in the state of Florida is zero. That’s the only thing you can do, is have zero tolerance.”
Voter fraud is extremely rare, usually occurs in isolated cases and is generally detected. An AP investigation into the 2020 presidential election found fewer than 475 potential cases of voter fraud out of 25.5 million votes cast in the six states where former President Donald Trump and his allies contested his loss to Democratic President Joe Biden.
What does Florida’s election police look like?
DeSantis signed a bill in 2022 to create a police force specifically focused on cracking down on voter fraud and other election crimes, a top Republican priority after Trump falsely claimed his re-election was stolen.
The Bureau of Election Crimes and Security investigates allegations of fraud, conducts preliminary investigations, and may refer fraud to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
In 2022, the state announced criminal charges against 20 people for voting illegally in 2020, in an opening salvo for the new election crimes unit. All of the individuals had prior felony convictions that barred them from voting, but all had been issued voter ID cards by the state, according to reporting by the Tampa Bay Times.
There are more than 13.6 million active registered voters in Florida.
Can the amendment be withdrawn from the vote?
Supporters of the amendment have branded the investigation “political interference,” fearing it is an attempt to force the amendment off the ballot at a late stage.
Torres-Spelliscy, the Stetson law professor, told AP that there is no legal precedent for the state to drop the amendment so late in the ballot process. Local election supervisors have said they have already sent their ballots to the printer.
Torres-Spelliscy pointed to an earlier decision by the state Supreme Court to keep a constitutional amendment on the ballot in a ruling that came just days before the 2016 election. The court rejected a request to invalidate the solar initiative, known as Amendment 1, despite media reports a month before the election that industry insiders had crafted the measure to mislead voters.
“Like the U.S. Supreme Court, the Florida Supreme Court has not followed its own precedents of late,” Torres-Spelliscy said. “But if they were consistent with previous precedents, including keeping Amendment 1 on the ballot in 2016, then the Florida Supreme Court should also keep Amendment 4 on the ballot in 2024.”
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Brendan Farrington, Associated Press editor in Tallahassee, contributed to this report.
___ Kate Payne is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
