Florida Residents Sue to Void Abortion Amendment on November Ballot

Protesters demonstrate against restricted access to abortions and the recently passed Parental Rights in Education law, in Tampa, Fla., on July 23, 2022. Natasha Holt/The Epoch Times

Long after the ballots were printed, and just weeks before the Nov. 5 election, an abortion-related citizen initiative to amend the Florida Constitution is in legal jeopardy over alleged fraud in the gathering of signatures.

Days after evidence of the alleged misconduct surfaced, four state residents filed a civil lawsuit asking an Orange County, Florida, circuit court judge to strike the “Amendment to Limit Government Interference with Abortion,” known as Amendment 4, from the November ballot and declare it null and void.

The proposed amendment reads, “No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.”

A 60 percent majority vote is required to pass the ballot measure.

On Oct. 11, an interim report by the Florida Office of Election Crimes and Security (OECS) revealed that the Amendment 4 ballot initiative had possibly failed to garner the required number of legitimate petition signatures to appear on the ballot.

An OECS investigation of the petitions circulated for the measure in Osceola, Palm Beach, and Orange counties projected that 16.4 percent of mistakenly verified signatures were likely fraudulent.

According to the OECS report, entities working for the adoption of Amendment 4 gathered 997,035 signatures statewide, 11.8 percent more than the ballot-qualifying threshold of 891,523.

The plaintiffs allege that, if the 16.4 percent invalid signature rate occurred statewide, the petition drive would have fallen short by 163,514 signatures.

The plaintiffs also asked the Orange County circuit court to enjoin the defendants—state and county election officials—from counting and posting the results of any votes cast on Amendment 4 in the general election.

No state official is accused of wrongdoing in the complaint.

Under Amendment 4, Florida’s parental consent laws pertaining to abortion would be invalidated. It would also eliminate the law that mandates abortions be performed by a licensed physician, and would do away with other health and safety provisions.

The proposed amendment would also render moot Florida’s Heartbeat Protection Act, a 2023 statute that makes abortion illegal after the sixth week of pregnancy, with the exceptions of rape, incest, human trafficking, a fatal fetal abnormality, and a threat to the mother’s life.

Report Findings

Also named in the lawsuit is the pro-abortion group Floridians Protecting Freedom (FPF), a main sponsor of the petition drive.

Based on evidence in the OECS report, the complaint alleges that, in cooperation with PCI Consultants of California and other signature-gathering agents, FPF hired “known fraudsters” to circulate petitions and individuals who allegedly engaged in “bulk identity theft.”

The allegations are bolstered by evidence collected by OECS investigators who found petitions laden with forged signatures, including those of voters known to be deceased.

OECS investigators said that some petition circulators, after forging voters’ signatures, used the voters’ personal information without their consent in filling out petition forms, which is a violation of Florida law.

Some circulators falsely swore to have personally witnessed signings of the petitions by voters, according to the complaint.

Petition circulators were also allegedly paid per signature, a practice that is illegal.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signs a bill into law that establishes the nation's first Office of Election Crimes and Security at the Department of State specifically to investigate voter fraud, in Spring Hill, Fla., on April 25, 2022. Patricia Tolson/The Epoch Times

FPF campaign director Lauren Brenzel called the lawsuit “a deeply troubling anti-democratic ... use of the judiciary.”

“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,” she wrote in an email to The Epoch Times.

“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 FPF website says of Amendment 4, “The overwhelming majority of Floridians think we should all have the freedom to make our own personal health care decisions without interference from politicians.”

PCI Consultants did not respond to requests for comment.

Mat Staver, chairman of the pro-life legal group Liberty Counsel, said in a statement about the petition signature findings: “The compelling evidence of fraud needs to be examined further to determine the full extent of invalid petitions. The constitutional amendment process must be free of fraud and deception.”