(LifeSiteNews) – Two individuals are being charged in Florida for submitting 133 phony signatures in support of an upcoming pro-abortion ballot initiative and in Kansas for submitting at least 46 fake signatures to back ballot placement for third-party candidates from the centrist No Labels group.
The Associated Press reported that Jamie Johnson and George Andrews III face 20 felony counts apiece in Florida, and Johnson faces 19 counts and Andrews 30 in Kansas. Johnson is currently being held in Sarpy County, Nebraska, where she was found and arrested last week, and Andrews in Hernando County, Florida, where he has been in custody since February.
Live Action added that in Florida the duo submitted the fraudulent signatures through Floridians Protecting Freedom, a coalition of pro-abortion groups that includes the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates and the American Civil Liberties Union.
Neither crime comes close to invalidating enough signatures to undo the legal validity of their respective petitions, but prosecutors say it’s a matter of principle to stamp out instances of election fraud, no matter how small.
“In Florida, our elections will continue to be fair and honest,” Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Mark Glass said. “Our FDLE inspectors will investigate every allegation of voter fraud because our elections must remain free from those willing to commit fraud at the expense of all voters.”
The so-called “Amendment to Limit Government Interference with Abortion” states that “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.” If enacted, it would require abortion to be allowed for any reason before fetal “viability” and render post-“viability” bans effectively meaningless by exempting any abortion that an abortionist claims is for “health” reasons.
The amendment ostensibly says that it “does not change the Legislature’s constitutional authority to require notification to a parent or guardian before a minor has an abortion.” But Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has warned that “there’s a difference between consent and notification. Notification is after the fact. The consent is obviously a condition precedent. They did that because they know going after parents’ rights is a vulnerability.”
Both sides are deeply invested in the outcome of Florida’s abortion battle this fall that will either continue or break a trend of pro-life losses at the ballot box since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
Constitutional amendments require 60 percent of the vote in Florida (as opposed to the simple-majority threshold in states such as Michigan and Ohio), and polls have disagreed as to whether the amendment can reach it. Additionally, Republican voter registration recently surpassed Democrats by more than 900,000, an unprecedented advantage expected to further impact turnout in November.
This week, DeSantis launched a new political committee, the Florida Freedom Fund, that identifies defeating the pro-abortion amendment as one of its top priorities.