TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida lawmakers may take less drastic action to reform the state’s constitutional amendment petition process that Gov. Ron DeSantis pushed for after pushback from elections supervisors across the state.
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When he announced his special session on immigration, DeSantis also put forward a proposal to require all voters to mail or physically hand over their signed petition forms to their local supervisor of elections office.
DeSantis’ proposal was made amid concerns some petitions for November’s marijuana legalization and abortion amendments were submitted fraudulently.
Critics said his administration has provided no proof of widespread petition fraud and called the proposal a power grab, since the amount of effort put on each voter would make it almost impossible to collect the required 700,000 signatures to circumvent the Republican-dominated legislature.
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In a discussion Tuesday, election supervisors told a panel of state senators that the amount of work put on their staff to process individual petition forms would be too great.
They suggested that third parties continued to be allowed to “stand outside Walmart” and collect signatures, but in addition to names and signatures, also collect identification like a driver’s license number or the last four digits of a social security number.
“They might have my first and last name… and be able to forge a signature, but they’re not going to have that identifying information,” Charlotte County Supervisor of Elections Leah Valenti said, adding that the additional information was already collected as part of the voter registration process.
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The chairman of the committee, Don Gaetz (R-Pensacola) voiced support for the petition process and cited its place in the Constitution, though he said he believed the process could use some buttoning up and was open to suggestions.
In the past, centrist and progressive groups have led efforts to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour and allow medical marijuana over lawmakers’ objections. While the two November referendums failed to cross the 60% support threshold, clear majorities voted in favor of both.
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