Florida state police officers are showing up at voters’ homes to question them about signing a petition to get an abortion rights amendment on the ballot in November, and a state health care agency has launched a website targeting the ballot initiative with politically charged language. Critics say those are the latest efforts by Republican officials to leverage state resources to try blocking the abortion rights measure, moves which some Democratic officials argue could violate state laws against voter intimidation, the Associated Press reports. Gov. “Ron (DeSantis) has repeatedly used state power to interfere with a citizen-led process to get reproductive freedom on the ballot,” said Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried. “This is their latest desperate attempt before Election Day.” The ballot initiative known as Amendment 4 would enshrine abortion rights in Florida law. If approved by 60% of voters, the procedure would remain legal until the fetus is viable, as determined by the patient’s health care provider.
Isaac Menasche, one of nearly a million people who signed the petition to get the measure on the ballot, said a law enforcement officer knocked on his door last week in Lee County in southwest Florida to ask him about signing it. The officer said the questioning was part of an investigation into alleged petition fraud, the Tampa Bay Times reported. “I’m not a person who is going out there protesting for abortion,” Menasche said. “I just felt strongly, and I took the opportunity when the person asked me to say, ‘Yeah, I’ll sign that petition.’” Critics say the investigation is a brazen attempt to intimidate voters in the third-largest state from protecting access to abortion — and the latest in a series of efforts by the governor’s administration to target Amendment 4. “Amendment 4 was placed on the ballot by nearly one million Floridians around the state and across party lines who believe that people, not politicians, deserve the freedom to make their own health care decisions,” said Lauren Brenzel of the Yes on 4 campaign. “But the state will stop at nothing to keep in place their near-total abortion ban.”
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