Officials vow to fight alleged abuses
letters from us relating to petitions allegedly signed, by them but the citizens did not sign the petition,” Hays said in a news release Thursday. “This amounts to a degradation of Florida’s electoral process and fraud.”
In the release sent by the Sheriff’s Office, Hays also said groups gathering petitions for state constitutional amendments are ignoring measures in House Bill 5, which Gov. Ron DeSantis signed in June. Critics charged the bill was aimed at obstructing citizen-led petition drives Republicans oppose.
The law requires petition gatherers to register with the state and have a Florida address and prohibits them from being paid by the number of signatures collected. It also requires fines of $50 for each petition sheet submitted more than 30 days after signatures were gathered or $250 if the delay was willful.
“There have been numerous reports of violations over the last several months and it appears as though they may be willfully doing so,” Hays said.
Grinnell said it’s his duty to enforce the law. “We must ensure verification that these groups, which are operating in Lake County, are following the law and not defrauding voters in an attempt to hijack our State’s Constitution,” he said in the release. “We cannot and will not ignore enforcing the law, and we will do everything in our power to protect and defend the Constitution and Laws of Florida.”
Groups are gathering signatures for a slew of proposed constitutional amendments that could be on the ballot next year.
Most recently, the Florida Supreme Court approved wording for Amendment 2, whether to raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2026.
Two others listed on the ballot already are Amendment 1, requiring that only U.S. citizens could vote in state and local elections, and Amendment 3, calling for nonpartisan open primaries. But they could be eliminated if the Supreme Court rules against their language.
Other efforts are underway to place on the ballot amendments to ban assault weapons, legalize recreational marijuana and mandate that ballot proposals be approved twice before becoming law.