Money, petitions pile up for ballot initiative

With more than $2.2 million spent as of the end of April, petition signatures are piling up for a proposed constitutional amendment about the citizenship of voters.

The political committee Florida Citizen Voters has submitted 59,761 signatures to the state Division of Elections, moving closer to an amount that will trigger a state Supreme Court review of the proposed ballot wording.

The proposal would change part of the state Constitution that now says, “Every citizen of the United States who is at least eighteen years of age and who is a permanent resident of the state, if registered as provided by law, shall be an elector of the county where registered.”

The proposal would change that wording to: “Only a citizen of the United States who is at least eighteen years of age and who is a permanent resident of the state, if registered as provided by law, shall be an elector of the county where registered.”

Florida Citizen Voters had raised and spent about $2.236 million as of the end of April, with all of the money coming from Citizen Voters, Inc., a non-profit based in Ponte Vedra Beach. The committee needs to submit 76,632 valid signatures to trigger the Supreme Court review.

If the Supreme Court signs off on the ballot wording, the committee would need to submit a total of 766,200 signatures to take the issue to voters in November 2020.