Several Florida voters are suing county elections officers, the Florida secretary of state and others in a bid to strike the Amendment 4 abortion-rights initiative from the state’s November ballot and block the counting of ballots in favor of the measure.
The campaign manager for Amendment 4 called the litigation, which was filed Oct. 16 in the Ninth Circuit Judicial Court in Orange County, a desperate attempt to undermine Floridians’ right to vote on the initiative.
The lawsuit argues that widespread irregularities took place in the signature-gathering campaign to place Amendment 4 on the ballot. The measure would provide a state constitutional right to abortion prior to viability of the fetus or when “necessary to protect the patient's health, as determined by the patient's health care provider.” It would also overturn the state’s current six-week abortion ban.
“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 states. “The invalid petitions must be stricken and Amendment 4 removed from the 2024 general election pursuant to binding judicial precedent. …”
The plaintiffs – Hope Hoffman and Terri Kellogg of St. Lucie County and Lorien Hershberger and Chelsey Davis of Taylor County – are seeking an injunction to stop the defendants from counting any votes in favor of the measure or a court declaration saying that the constitutional amendment is “null and void.” They also want to bar the defendants from posting any election results for the measure on their websites or other venues.
The complaint quotes from an Oct. 11 report by the Florida Department of State’s Office of Election Crimes & Security (OECS) about irregularities in the signature-gathering process used by Floridians Protection Freedom (FPF), the measure’s sponsor.
“OECS has received credible allegations that some of FPF’s subcontractors paid individual circulators per petition collected,” a letter to Gov. Ron DeSantis and state legislative leaders from Deputy Secretary of State for Legal Affairs & Election Integrity Brad McVay states. “This is a third-degree felony in Florida.”
Thousands of fraudulent or problematic petition forms were erroneously validated for the abortion measure, according to the Oct. 11 report.
“Based on the preliminary results of (the OECS) investigation, the number of FPF paid circulators who have committed criminal activity in connection with Initiative Petition 23-07 has now grown to well over 100, affecting many thousands of Floridians in most of the state’s counties,” the report says.
But Lauren Brenzel, campaign director for Yes on 4, said the campaign has been run above-board in accordance with state law.
“What we are seeing now is nothing more than dishonest distractions and desperate attempts to silence voters,” Brenzel said in a statement emailed to the Florida Record. “These lawsuits should be recognized for what they are – a deeply troubling anti-democratic effort to use the judiciary to keep the people of Florida from being able to make their own choice about whether Amendment 4 should become law.”
The Orange County lawsuit comes amid other questionable state actions in recent weeks, including the “wasted $16,000 in taxpayer resources” spent on public service announcements designed to keep the six-week abortion ban intact, she said.
“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 – that these anti-abortion extremists want to relitigate the petition collection process?” Brenzel said. “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.”