EXCLUSIVE — Florida anti-abortion advocates Florida filed a lawsuit on Wednesday in which they alleged widespread fraud in the signature collection process to get an abortion rights amendment on the ballot this fall, which, if successful, would invalidate a vote to approve the measure in November.
Attorney Alan Lawson, former Florida Supreme Court Justice, told the Washington Examiner in an exclusive interview that he has filed lawsuits on behalf of four citizen plaintiffs across Florida that challenge the validity of the abortion rights measure, Amendment 4, even being on the ballot next month.
“Irrespective of what a Floridian believes about the merits of this amendment and abortion in general, every Floridian ought to want to protect their constitution from fraud and criminal activity,” said Lawson in an exclusive interview with the Washington Examiner.
Florida is one of 10 states this election season that will have an abortion rights amendment on the ballot that would provide a constitutional right to abortion before the point of fetal viability. Currently, abortion is only legal in Florida up to six weeks of pregnancy, at which point fetal cardiac activity is usually detectable via ultrasound.
The legal action on Wednesday comes days after the Florida Department of State Office of Election Crimes and Security published an interim report last week alleging that, as a statewide average, approximately 16.4% of the signatures required to get Amendment 4 on the ballot were fraudulent.
The report alleges that the abortion-rights group Floridians Protecting Freedom, or FPF, spent $27 million to have their signature collection campaign conducted by a California-based corporation, PCI Consultants.
Evidence collected by the Department of State documents that PCI paid individual petition circulators per signature collected, which is a third degree felony offense in Florida punishable by up to five years in prison.
The report also alleges that petition circulators essentially committed identity theft to obtain additional signatures by obtaining personal information of Floridians online to fill out the necessary paperwork and forging signatures.
“This is crime after crime after crime that resulted in forged signatures and resulted in a ballot measure being placed on the ballot when there were not enough legitimate signatures to constitutionally make it on the ballot,” said Lawson.
Article 11, Section 3 of the Florida Constitution requires that proponents of any constitutional amendment obtain signatures from registered voters equalling 8% of the total ballots cast in the prior presidential election and 8% of the voters in at least half of the congressional districts.
Lawson says that based on the numbers tabulated in the State Department report, “there just aren’t enough valid signatures to make it on the ballot.”
Although the lawsuit will likely not make it through the courts before election day on Nov. 5, Lawson said that the Florida precedent on this issue clearly states that Amendment 4 would be invalidated even if it passed the popular vote.
“When that kind of fraud is perpetrated on the local supervisors of elections and the public, the measure can’t stand, should not be voted on, and, even if it were to pass and to result in a lawsuit beforehand, it would not go into effect because the basic constitutional requirements for the number of signatures required to even have a vote was never met,” said Lawson.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of four Florida resident plaintiffs opposed to Amendment 4, one of whom is a survivor of a failed abortion.
Plaintiff Hope Hoffman survived an attempted abortion at approximately 10 weeks gestation but suffered significant brain injuries and cerebral palsy. Hoffman, now in her thirties, was adopted by Terri Kellogg, also a plaintiff in the case.
Kellogg and Hoffman are from St. Lucie County, Florida, where the signature invalidity rate for their congressional district was approximately 18.4%, according to the State Department report.
“Abortion has caused permanent bodily harm to my loving daughter, Hope, and corrupting our democratic process is perfectly consistent with the abortion industry’s destructive nature,” said Kellogg in a statement provided to the Washington Examiner.
FPF, as well as certain supervisors of elections throughout Florida and the Florida Secretary of State, Cord Byrd, are named defendants in the case.
Byrd and other officials in the DeSantis administration are named in the suit not because of wrongdoing of the state but rather because they are able to provide the legal relief of invalidating the ballot measure.
FPF, which is affiliated with both Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union, did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment regarding the Department of State report.
Yes On 4 campaign director, Lauren Brenzel told local NBC affiliate South Florida 6 on Monday that the campaign has not engaged in any fraudulent activity.
“Ask yourself why this is happening now?” Brenzel said in a statement to the outlet. “It’s because our campaign is winning and the government is trying to do everything it can to stop Floridians from having the rights they deserve.”
Brenzel also expressed concern that the report itself could dissuade voters from supporting the amendment, even if they individually supported abortion access.
Florida requires that a 60% majority of voters approve any ballot amendment. Polling data from before the State Department report was published indicates the measure does not have enough support to pass.
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According to a New York Times and Siena College poll from earlier this month, only 46% of Floridians said they planned to support the abortion rights amendment at the ballot box, with 16% undecided and 38% solidly against.
Support for the ballot measure has fallen since earlier this fall, with a Hill and Emerson College poll showing that only 54.6% of Floridians in September intended to vote in favor of the measure.