JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The fight over Amendment 4 in Florida is heating up with the election only three weeks away.
The proposed constitutional amendment is officially known as the “Amendment to Limit Government Interference with Abortion.” It would prohibit laws that restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health.
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The proposal requires 60% approval in order to become law. One recent poll of 625 likely voters found 61% in support, while another recent poll of 622 likely voters showed just 46% in favor.
The state government has waded into the political fight, launching ads and a website that says “Current Law Protects Women, Amendment 4 Threatens Women’s Safety.” It compares the proposed amendment unfavorably to Florida’s current law, which bans abortion in most cases after 6 weeks.
The website has prompted lawsuits alleging the state improperly spent taxpayer money for political purposes, but a Leon County judge declined to intervene, citing a lack of evidence for the allegations.
Earlier this week, the state Office of Election Crimes & Security released a report detailing allegations of petition fraud for Amendment 4.
Duval County Supervisor of Elections Jerry Holland explained how citizen initiatives such as Amendment 4 make it to the ballot.
“They have to gather 8% of the number of voters in the last presidential election,” Holland said. “So valid petitions is about 850,000 petitions that the citizens initiatives had to get in order to get on the ballot.”
“It’s a very long process, very expensive process, to gather all these signatures,” Holland said.
According to Holland, specially trained elections workers verify each signature on a ballot or petition, and about 30% of petition signatures are usually rejected in that process.
“People don’t take the time as much to write their signature out when they’re doing a petition, it’s kind of like they’re in a hurry,” he said.
That means their signature might not match what’s on file.
In the report, it’s alleged some petitioner circulators were paid per signature for Amendment 4, which is illegal. The document also cites reports of petition signatures being forged or signers being misled.
Holland said there haven’t been significant issues with petition signatures for Amendment 4.
“But we have had a few issues,” he said. “Voters have contacted us and said, ‘You know, I signed something, but they didn’t really tell me that it what it was for. They didn’t show them all the verbiage, you know, that was on the ballot.’ And so some were upset for that. We even investigated some, but the people weren’t still at that location.”
He estimated they received fewer than five such complaints.
The report doesn’t mention Duval County, but says the fraud it found elsewhere is “unacceptable,” and “it is imperative that the state consider major reforms to the initiative petition process to prevent groups from doing this ever again in Florida.”