Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration released an unprecedented report Friday accusing the organizers behind Florida’s abortion amendment of committing “widespread petition fraud” in the drive to get the initiative on the ballot next month.

The unusual 348-page preliminary report from the Florida secretary of state advocates for the state Legislature to change laws to crack down on future petition drives. And it could lay the groundwork for an attempt by the administration to disqualify or invalidate the amendment, which DeSantis has vowed to defeat.

The report alleges that organizers backing Amendment 4, which would overturn the state’s six-week abortion ban, illegally paid circulators by the number of signatures collected. The report said that the state on Friday fined the organizers $328,000.

State audits estimate that 16.4% of petitions across the state should never have been validated, the report states.

The report also includes sweeping generalizations about the petition drive without providing data to back them up.

Amendment 4 was sponsored by Floridians Protecting Freedom and groups including the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, which plans to contest the fine. The campaign director for Yes on 4, Lauren Brenzel, denied any wrongdoing.

“This campaign has been run above board and followed state law at every turn,” Brenzel said in a statement. “What we are seeing now is nothing more than dishonest distractions and desperate attempts to silence voters.”

Brenzel noted that the state didn’t challenge the signatures when it had a chance to in January.

The report, issued after Floridians started voting, is the latest example of the governor’s use of state power to defeat Amendment 4, one of his top priorities this fall.

Last month, the state Agency for Health Care Administration launched a website advocating against the amendment, in possible violation of state law prohibiting state-sponsored electioneering. On Oct. 3, the general counsel for the state’s Department of Health sent cease and desist letters to Tampa and Gainesville television stations threatening to take criminal action if the stations refused to take down a political ad supporting Amendment 4.

Since DeSantis and the Legislature created the Office of Election Crimes and Security office in 2022, it has never produced a report like the one released Friday, and critics questioned the timing of its release.

The report states that it was produced “in advance of the upcoming legislative session” to “summarize its preliminary findings and reemphasize the need for more effective regulation of petition circulation.”

It is addressed to DeSantis, Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, and House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast.

The legislative session doesn’t begin until March. And it won’t be known which members of the Legislature will serve during that session until the November election. Renner won’t be in the Legislature next year because of term limits, and Passidomo will no longer be president of the Senate.

State Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, said it’s “clear” that the intention of the report was not to inform state lawmakers.

“It’s an attempt to mislead and confuse voters about three weeks ahead of an election,” Eskamani said. “They’re sending the report to a lame-duck speaker and Senate president.”

In order to get on the ballot before voters next month, the backers of Amendment 4 had to collect nearly 900,000 verified signatures from registered voters and meet a required number in at least half of Florida’s 28 congressional districts.

Those petition drives have historically been riddled with examples of fraud, the report said. Circulators have illegally made up names or forged voters’ signatures instead of doing the hard work of roaming parking lots and public spaces for legitimate endorsements.

County elections supervisors collect the petition forms and match the voter’s information and signature to what they have on file, and commonly toss out about 30% for various reasons, including potential fraud.

Critics have suspected that DeSantis’ office has targeted the Amendment 4 petition drive for political reasons. A 2021 drive financed by Las Vegas Sands — whose late founder, Sheldon Adelson, was a megadonor to DeSantis and Republicans — had many more apparent signs of fraud. But that investigation fizzled with only the lowest-level circulators being investigated, observers have noted.

Why the state has focused on Amendment 4 over other amendment efforts is not clear. The report says that supervisors referred “an unusually high volume of complaints” to the state, but the report does not compare the volume of complaints to any other petition drive.

It says “a significant number of known or suspected fraudsters had petitions counted across the state,” but also doesn’t compare that to any other petition drive.

The report mentions unnamed subcontractors claiming that some circulators were being paid per signature, a third-degree felony, and one subcontractor advertising on social media that it would pay circulators per signature. The California-based company hired by the campaign, which has been behind several successful Florida petition drives since the 1990s, has denied paying people per signature.

Four circulators working on behalf of the amendment have been arrested, some because either the campaign or elections supervisors alerted officials to concerns. Five circulators working on other petitions have also been arrested this year.

The state’s investigation included knocking on voters’ doors asking if they signed petitions and requesting tens of thousands of petitions that supervisors had deemed valid. Elections supervisors said they couldn’t recall the state ever requesting validated petitions for a fraud investigation.

The state analyzed 13,445 validated petitions from Orange, Osceola and Palm Beach counties and found that at least “2,849 should not have been validated due to statutory deficiencies or a clear mismatch between the signature on the petition and any signature on file,” the report states.

The office projected that in six congressional districts, supervisors improperly validated between 11.7% and 23.6% of abortion petition signatures. Statewide, the rate could be 16.4%, the report suggested — which would have been enough to invalidate the amendment in four districts, according to a Times/Herald analysis.

The report has no data comparing those rates with other petition drives.

“The fraud outlined in this report 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,” the report states.

The report says the supervisors of Orange and Palm Beach counties “failed their statutory obligation to verify petition forms” in accordance with state law.

Orange County Chief Elections Administrator Christopher Heath said the office was “aware of the report and is reviewing its findings.”

A spokesperson for Palm Beach County Supervisor Wendy Sartory Link did not respond to requests for comment on Saturday.

_____

©2024 Tampa Bay Times. Visit tampabay.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.