DeSantis named as defendant in lawsuit to discredit abortion rights amendment • Florida Phoenix

The anti-abortion advocates who sued to overturn votes already cast for the amendment that would protect abortion access in Florida are now suing Gov. Ron DeSantis and other top leaders.

Former Florida Supreme Court Justice Alan Lawson, a lawyer for abortion foes, added DeSantis, Attorney General Ashley Moody and Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis as defendants in the Amendment 4 lawsuit on Tuesday afternoon, just a week before Election Day.

Prosecutors want a state court in Orange County to nullify all votes already cast, as Floridians have already begun voting by mail and at early voting locations. Amendment 4, which would overturn a state law banning most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, needs the approval of 60% of voters to pass.

Abortion enemies are asking the court to remove Amendment 4 from the November ballot

The Phoenix has reached out to representatives for DeSantis, Moody and Patronis, but has not yet heard back.

Lawson represents four women from St. Lucie and Taylor counties who claim the amendment has not collected enough signatures to qualify for the Nov. 5 ballot. Their claim of fraud in petition collection, which Floridians Protecting Freedom, the group behind the amendment, has vehemently denied, stems from a Preliminary report dated October 11 of the State Bureau of Election Crime and Security.

DeSantis, Moody and Patronis were named based on their roles as members of the State Elections Canvassing Commission, an amended complaint explains. The anti-abortion activists are also complaining Floridians Protecting Freedom and have named Secretary of State Cord Byrd and 21 election supervisors across the state as defendants.

According to the amended complaint, the plaintiffs do not accuse DeSantis or any of the state officials of wrongdoing.

“The State Defendants are named in this lawsuit solely based on their respective legal duties and to ensure that the Court has jurisdiction to award the damages sought. Nothing in this complaint should be construed to suggest that any of the state defendants engaged in misconduct,” Lawson wrote in the complaint.

DeSantis has several government agencies to argue against Amendment 4, and Moody argued in vain to the state Supreme Court that the amendment’s ballot language was too vague.

The state report concluded that 16.4% of the petitions collected by Floridians Protecting Freedom were invalid, based on the review of 13,445 verified signatures. But local election supervisors had verified 997,035 signatures for Amendment 4 as of January.