The pro-abortion group behind Florida’s failed amendment to enshrine a right to abortion in the state constitution recently paid more than $186,000 in fines stemming from complaints and investigations alleging major fraudulent activity during its campaign.
According to a Dec. 20, 2024 memo from Florida Deputy Secretary of State for Legal Affairs and Election Integrity Brad McVay, state election officials were “inundated” in 2023 and 2024 with signature fraud complaints about “Floridians Protecting Freedom” (FPF), the group that sponsored Amendment 4. FPF needed a minimum of 891,523 public signatures to get Amendment 4 on the ballot, in which they collected 997,035. As a result of the complaints, the Florida Office of Election Crimes & Security (OECS) opened more than 100 criminal investigations in FPF signature gatherers. The investigations involved allegations of paid FPF signature gatherers signing petitions themselves on behalf of deceased individuals, forging voter signatures on petitions, using voters’ personal identifying information without consent, and perjury/false swearing when submitting the petitions.
The OECS has referred many of these cases to Florida law enforcement where at least three people employed by FPF have since been arrested, convicted of several felonies, and sentenced, one to a multi-year prison term, the memo stated. The memo also noted that a larger group of paid signature gatherers employed by FPF are still under investigation where at least 55 are already “known fraudsters” and appeared on an industry “Do Not Buy” list.
While many signatures submitted by FPF were rejected by election supervisors, the OECS learned over the course of the investigations that thousands more submitted by the group were “mistakenly validated” and counted. McVay noted that each of these signatures could “correspond to a Floridian who (unbeknownst to him or her) is a victim of felony election fraud.” Because of this, and for failing to deliver signatures in a timely manner to election supervisors, FPF has paid $164,000 in a settlement agreement in December 2024 on top of an additional $22,000 it paid earlier for other civil penalties.
Attached to McVay’s memo is a 443-page “Supplemental Interim Report” detailing the available findings of fraud involving FPF and its campaign for Amendment 4. In this report, OECS states it discovered that FPF contracted PCI Consultants, a California-based corporation, and paid the company $27 million in 2023 and 2024 to collect and submit Florida signatures. The report notes that PCI Consultants used “unregistered out-of-state entities” and unlawfully paid signature gatherers per signature. However, due to the company being based in California, the organization is out of Florida’s jurisdiction to “enforce subpoenas” making it difficult to hold them accountable.
According to the supplemental report, the OECS’ preliminary audits in three Florida counties revealed that 25.4 percent of signatures “submitted by known or suspected fraudsters” were invalid. In Palm Beach County alone, the invalidity rate was 36.6 percent but went as high as 49 percent when counting both invalid and questionable signatures. In Orange County, 32.3 percent of the signatures were fraudulent and in Osceola County 7.4 percent of the signatures were fraudulent with more listed as questionable. In these counties, election supervisors “mistakenly verified” at least 2,849 invalid signatures from disreputable sources.
In the memo, McVay recommended to Governor Ron DeSantis and the Florida legislature that “barring outside companies” from signature gathering efforts, imposing residency requirements, and making felons ineligible for paid signature gathering would strengthen Florida’s election integrity laws.
Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver stated, “Election fraud is reprehensible and undermines every citizen’s right to vote. The fines and penalties against Floridians Protecting Freedom may not go far enough to prevent groups from doing the same thing again in Florida. Strong laws and enforcement are the best defense against fraud. Floridians deserve an honest and legal ballot process.”
