Q&A of the Day – Florida's Investigation into Fraudulent Marijuana Petition Signatures
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Today’s entry: Criminal probe on alleged fraudulent signatures supporting marijuana initiative in Broward County, No Surprise…. Where’s. @brianmuddradio
Bottom Line: I often hear from listeners of my former show on our sister station in Miami, which was Miami and Broward focused show, and included among other things – regular investigations into questionable matters in those local governments...hence, today’s note. Most notably, in the context of today’s question – I assisted in an investigation that exposed the corruption and unlawful voter ballots being tabulated in the 2018 election cycle in Broward and Palm Beach counties that led to the ouster of former election supervisors – Brenda Snipes and Susan Bucher. The question is do we have problems in Broward and perhaps other counties once again? Let’s dive into what’s in play with Florida’s recreational marijuana initiative.
Since the previous scandals in 2018, Florida has established the election crimes division of state government, which allows a small group of investigators to pursue potential election-related misfeasance anywhere within the state. State investigators have opened a criminal probe into alleged fraudulent signatures on petitions for a proposed recreational marijuana constitutional amendment with a specific focus on petitions processed in Broward County.
The initiative, backed by the Smart & Safe Florida PAC, the same PAC which placed the proposal on 2024’s ballots, but that fell just over 4% short of passing, aims to legalize adult personal use of marijuana by placing it on this year’s midterm election ballot. The petition required 880,062 valid signatures statewide by February 1st for consideration by the Florida Supreme Court. As of Friday’s reporting, the campaign appears likely to have fallen short, with 783,592 valid signatures counted amid ongoing scrutiny and invalidations. Here’s a bit of the backstory as to what’s been uncovered by the state thus far.
A few months ago, based on the purported number of signatures that had been collected by the Smart & Safe Florida PAC, it looked likely that your November ballot would include a proposed amendment for recreational marijuana. But then the state began to dig into many of the signatures that were collected and submitted to election supervisors for approval, and what they found was a lot of smoke. Specifically, Secretary of State Cord Byrd’s Office uncovered 41,894 submitted signatures from former voters who were no longer active voters within the state. Then came the finding of 28,752 signatures from full-time residents of other states. The state removed those signatures, the PAC sued, but Florida’s 1st District Court of Appeal sided with the state in the removal of those signatures. That brings us to the next winkle and the current investigation.
Key in this conversation is the role that election supervisors play in the process. When ballot signatures are collected, they’re submitted to county election supervisors who are then to determine if they’re legitimate or not. What the state has uncovered thus far has been eye opening. Let’s start with Broward, which has been the first point of emphasis and the focus of today’s subject.
Key developments, particularly in Broward County:
- State election crimes investigators visited the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office last week to examine petitions submitted there.
- A letter from statewide prosecutor Brad McVay to Broward Supervisor Joe Scott stated concerns that some petitions contained forged signatures or were otherwise fraudulent, potentially involving stolen voter personal information.
- Broward officials invalidated approximately 535 of the flagged petitions while validating about 302. Investigators identified 27 specific Smart & Safe Florida circulators (terminated for fraud and under active criminal probes) whose petitions had been submitted to Broward.
We’re early in the investigation, but effectively for the sample of ballot petitions determined to be fraudulent in Broward thus far, 36% of the bogus petitions were verified as legitimate by the Broward Supervisor of Elections. Clearly when your office is “verifying” over a third of fraudulent petitions, there’s a problem. On that note, based on initial findings in Broward there’s been an expansion of the probe statewide, with officials opening additional criminal investigations with the latest total of investigations appearing to total over 46, or over half of the state’s supervisor’s offices. In announcing the expansion of the investigation, AG James Uthermeier said this: Smart & Safe Florida’s petition fraud touches nearly all of Florida’s 67 counties, and we’ve expanded our investigation statewide. An investigation doesn’t inherently equal misconduct – though it does mean the state suspects that what happened in Broward occurred elsewhere as well. On that note...
A week ago, a Titusville woman was charged with a dozen counts of identity theft and fraudulent voter registrations tied to marijuana petitions. She was found to have been paid by Smart & Safe Florida to have been a producing petitions for the PAC. And while most counties are now under investigation here are those (aside form Broward) where the state has cited specific concerns up to this point: Brevard, Hillsborough, Lee and Pineallas.
What’s encouraging is that with an election crimes division in place, we’ve come a long way since 2018, for example, when I relied on sources to produce information that could be shared with the state to attempt to prompt an investigation. To be continued...