By Jim Saunders ©2024 The News Service of Florida
TALLAHASSEE — A political committee that led unsuccessful efforts to pass a constitutional amendment on abortion rights is fighting the state’s attempt to impose a $328,000 fine related to petitions gathered for the initiative.
The dispute between the Floridians Protecting Freedom political committee and the Florida Department of State went to the state Division of Administrative Hearings last week.
The Department of State sent a letter Oct. 11 notifying the committee about the fine amid a fierce political battle about what appeared on the Nov. 5 ballot as Amendment 4.
The letter said the owner of a petition-circulating business in late 2023 reported to the department’s Office of Election Crimes & Security that he suspected fraud by eight of his employees who were gathering petition signatures for the initiative.
The owner of the business brought 600 petitions and said he thought a large number of them were fraudulent because of issues including incorrect dates of birth and signatures that appeared forged, the letter said. The state office made copies of the petitions and returned the original versions to the man.
The letter said the petitions were returned, at least in part, so Floridians Protecting Freedom could comply with a legal requirement that petitions be submitted to supervisors of elections within 30 days of when they are signed.
In imposing the fine, the department alleged that 328 of the petitions were not submitted to supervisors of elections.
“Based on the documents provided to OECS (the Office of Election Crimes & Security), the information provided by the circulator … who was identified as the owner of the entity whose sole purpose was to collect petitions on behalf of FPF (Floridians Protecting Freedom) for the abortion amendment and the confirmation by each supervisor of elections office, the department finds that FPF failed to deliver 328 petitions to the relevant supervisor of elections as required by Florida law, and that the failure was willful,” the letter, filed as part of the Division of Administrative Hearings case, said. “Therefore, the department is imposing a $328,000 fine.”
Floridians Protecting Freedom on Nov. 1 sent a request to the Department of State for an evidentiary hearing on the fine. The department last week sent the request to the Division of Administrative Hearings, with Administrative Law Judge G.W. Chisenhall assigned to the case.
The committee’s request contests the fine and disputes a series of issues raised by the department, including issues about the owner of the petition-circulating business.
For example, it questioned whether the department should have “sent the petitions to FPF rather than returning them to the individual.” It questioned whether it was “possible for FPF to have delivered the alleged 328 ‘missing’ petitions to the relevant supervisors of elections within the statutory allotted time frame after the OECS allegedly returned them to the individual.”
As another example, it questioned whether the “petitions that allegedly were not submitted to the relevant supervisor of elections actually were signed by an elector” and whether Floridians Protecting Freedom “had a fiduciary duty to submit petitions that were not actually signed by an elector.”
It also disputed whether Floridians Protecting Freedom “willfully failed to deliver 328 petitions to the relevant supervisors of elections.”
The Department of State notified the committee of the fine as Gov. Ron DeSantis led efforts to defeat Amendment 4, which would have enshrined abortion rights in the state Constitution. Floridians Protecting Freedom launched the campaign last year after DeSantis and the Republican-controlled Legislature passed a law that largely prevents abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.
About 57 percent of voters supported the measure, but that was short of the required 60 percent to pass constitutional amendments.
Leave a Reply
