Florida law enforcers are investigating the state's abortion ballot initiative. Here's what to know

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — State police in Florida are showing up at the homes of voters who signed a petition to get an abortion rights amendment on the ballot in November as part of a state probe into alleged petition fraud.

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has defended police visiting the homes of Floridians who signed the petition. Critics say the investigation is a brazen attempt to intimidate voters in the country’s third-largest state from protecting access to abortion — and that the probe comes long after a deadline to challenge petition signatures has passed.

Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a professor of constitutional and elections law at the Stetson University College of Law, said she doesn't know of a legal precedent the state could use to challenge the signatures after the deadline.

“The Florida Supreme Court already allowed the abortion question to go on the ballot in April of 2024,” Torres-Spelliscy told The Associated Press. “Thus this effort to question signatures at this point seems far too late.”

Here’s what to know about Florida’s abortion ballot initiative and the state probe into the petitions behind it.

Florida law currently bans most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, before many women even know they are pregnant. If approved by 60% of voters, the ballot initiative known as Amendment 4 would ensure that abortions are legal until the fetus is viable, as determined by the patient’s health care provider.

The proposed amendment says “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.” It provides for one exception, which is already in the state constitution — that parents must be notified before their minor children can get an abortion.

To qualify for the November ballot, supporters had to collect more than 891,000 petition signatures from Florida voters. In January, state elections officials confirmed the campaign had cleared that milestone, ultimately submitting more than 997,000 verified signatures — 100,000 more than they needed. That margin is far more than the 36,000 signatures state officials say they're probing as part of a broad review by the Florida Department of State to investigate alleged petition fraud.

In April, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the ballot measure would be allowed to go before voters in November, rejecting the state attorney general’s argument that the proposed amendment is deceptive and that voters won’t realize how broadly it will expand access to abortions.

According to a letter from Deputy Secretary of State Brad McVay that was shared with the AP, the state’s Office of Election Crimes and Security is “concerned” about allegations that forged signatures were submitted and then verified as valid by supervisors of elections.

Police are showing up at some voters' homes to question them about signing a petition to get the abortion initiative on the ballot. And state officials have sent requests to county-level elections supervisors to gather thousands of petition signatures for review as part of an investigation into alleged petition fraud, according to reporting by the Tampa Bay Times.

DeSantis defended the investigation, saying police have found evidence that some of the supposed voter signatures were from dead people.

“They’re investigating this, as they should," DeSantis said Tuesday. "Our tolerance for voter fraud in the state of Florida is zero. That’s the only thing that you can do is to have zero tolerance.”

Voter fraud is extremely rare, typically occurs in isolated instances and is generally detected. An AP investigation of the 2020 presidential election found fewer than 475 potential cases of voter fraud out of 25.5 million ballots cast in the six states where former President Donald Trump and his allies disputed his loss to Democratic President Joe Biden.

DeSantis signed a bill in 2022 to create a police force dedicated to pursuing voter fraud and other election crimes, embracing a top Republican priority following Trump’s false claims that his reelection was stolen.

The Office of Election Crimes and Security reviews fraud allegations and conducts preliminary investigations and can make referrals to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

In 2022, the state announced criminal charges against 20 people for illegally voting in 2020, in an opening salvo for the the new election crimes unit. All of the individuals had prior felony convictions that left them ineligible to vote, but all had been issued voter id cards by the state, according to reporting by the Tampa Bay Times.

There are more than 13.6 million active registered voters in Florida.

Supporters of the amendment have labeled the investigation as “political interference.” They fear it's a late-stage effort to try to pull the amendment from the ballot.

Torres-Spelliscy, the Stetson law professor, told the AP there's no legal precedent for the state to have the amendment struck from the ballot this late in the process. Local elections supervisors have said they've already begun sending their ballot language to the printers.

Torres-Spelliscy pointed to a previous decision by the state supreme court to keep a constitutional amendment on the ballot in a ruling that came just days before the 2016 election. The court rejected a request to invalidate the solar energy ballot initiative known as Amendment 1, despite media reports a month before the election that industry insiders had crafted the measure to mislead voters.

“Like the U.S. Supreme Court, the Florida Supreme Court has not been following its own precedents recently,” Torres-Spelliscy said. “But if they were being consistent with prior precedents including keeping Amendment 1 on the ballot in 2016, then the Florida Supreme Court should also keep Amendment 4 on the ballot in 2024.”

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Associated Press writer Brendan Farrington in Tallahassee contributed to this report.

___ Kate Payne is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.