Ron DeSantis Sent His Goons to Intimidate Pro-Abortion Florida Voters

Whenever Republicans speak approvingly about gutting abortion at the federal level, they swear it’s not about eradicating reproductive rights but that they are simply sending the matter back to individual states so residents can get a say. Of course, in reality, they don’t actually care about the will of the people, who in the US overwhelmingly support abortion rights.

Take Florida, for example: Last year, governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill banning abortion after six weeks—late at night with little fanfare, likely because he knew just how unpopular the law, which effectively outlaws abortion in the state, would be. And now, after an abortion referendum made it on to the Florida ballot for November, he’s doing everything in his power to ensure his constituents don’t get to weigh in on the matter.

The Washington Post reports that the governor’s “election police unit is investigating alleged fraud in signature gathering for the state’s upcoming abortion referendum in a move that critics say is designed to intimidate voters.” According to the Miami Herald, two people have reported receiving visits, at their homes, from Florida law enforcement agents, and were questioned about signing a petition to add Amendment 4—which would enshrine abortion rights in the state Constitution—to the ballot. One of those people, Isaac Menasche, reportedly wrote on Facebook that the official asked about his signature and brandished a dossier of 10 pages of his personal information. “The experience left me shaken,” Menasche wrote, adding that he found it “troubling that so much resources were devoted to this.”

The home visits follow the news that the DeSantis administration asked supervisors in four Florida counties to round up about 36,000 signatures for the state to review for fraud—despite the signatures already being verified by local supervisors. Two of those supervisors told the Tampa Bay Times that the request from the state was highly unusual, with Osceola County supervisor of elections Mary Jane Arrington telling the outlet: “I have never in my tenure had a request like this one.”

And that’s not all DeSantis and Co. are doing to ensure the abortion referendum is defeated. Per The Washington Post:

The investigation comes as Democrats and election experts express concern that DeSantis is using the powers of the state to derail the referendum, which would nullify a six-week abortion ban the Republican governor signed into law last year. The state’s health-care agency recently launched a website that claims the amendment “threatens women’s safety.”

Bacardi Jackson, the executive director of the ACLU of Florida, said in a statement that it is “unprecedented for the State to expressly advocate against a citizen-led initiative,” adding: “This kind of propaganda issued by the state, using taxpayer money and operating outside of the political process sets a dangerous precedent. This is what we would expect to see from an authoritarian regime, not in the so-called Free State of Florida.”

As for the visits to people’s homes, DeSantis defended the move on Monday, claiming that the state had received “a lot of complaints” about a particular group that had gathered signatures, the name of which he did not reveal. The same day, Democratic state representative Fentrice Driskell called out the DeSantis administration for what appear, quite obviously, to be intimidation tactics. “They want people to stay home and to not vote,” Driskell said. “They want people to read these articles and hear it on social media that the police showed up at somebody’s door and intimidated them and made them feel bad about signing an Amendment 4 petition.”

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