New reports out of Florida allege that Governor Ron DeSantis and his administration are waging a war against Floridians who signed a petition in order to get Florida's abortion amendment on the November ballot. Now, there was a lot in the news recently about this amendment [00:00:17] on the November ballot. They did manage to get enough signatures in order to put this issue on the ballot. So the voters in Florida can decide, hey, do we want to keep a six week abortion ban, which is effectively a total abortion ban in our state, [00:00:32] or do we want to go back to the standard that was set in place during Roe v Wade? And so we'll see how it plays out. But based on polling, it does seem poised to pass, which is good news. Now, nearly 1 million Florida voters signed this petition to get this amendment [00:00:48] on the November ballot. And in fact, the individuals who organized this entire campaign managed to submit an additional 100,000 signatures just for good measure. They wanted to make sure they had more, way more signatures than they needed so it would qualify for the ballot. [00:01:05] Now, one of the men who signed this petition is Isaac Menashe, who y vividly remembers signing it at a farmers market last year. He said, quote, I'm not a person who's going to who's going out there protesting for abortion. [00:01:20] I just felt strongly and I took the opportunity when the person asked me, so, yeah, I'll sign the petition. Then, according to him who spoke to the Tampa Bay times for this story. A plain clothes police officer showed up at his home [00:01:35] to investigate potential petition fraud. The officer allegedly asked him multiple times if he was actually the one who signed this petition. And of course, Menashe decided to confirm because he did sign the petition, [00:01:50] though the officer was professional and courteous. Menashe, who has had little interaction with police in his life, said the encounter left him shaken. He told The times that the officer who showed up at his door had a copy of his driver's license and other documents related to him. [00:02:07] Menashe says he does not recall which agency the officer was with, and this isn't a one off. There are other examples as well, which I'll get to in just a moment, but it does raise a question right. Is there a possibility that they're just ensuring that the signatures are real, [00:02:24] or is this an intimidation campaign, 100% intimidation? Here's why. So normally what happens in when you investigate this type of fraud? If there was fraud, you first look at the people who, were disqualified [00:02:40] because what happens in a signature gathering operation is you always have to collect, to in order to be safe. Twice as many signatures as you need. Why? Because they disqualify signatures all the time at a massive rate. Like when I was running for president, we needed 500 signatures in Arizona. [00:02:58] I forget the exact number we got, but we got way above 500, and we didn't make it because they disqualified a giant percentage. Oh, you were missing a zip code. Oh, you had this wrong, you had that wrong, I can't read it, etc. So when you're looking for fraud, the first thing you would go to is the disqualified signatures, because that is much more likely to get you to fraud. [00:03:17] If you're trying to do an intimidation tactic to intimidate the people who actually legitimately signed it, you go to the people who legitimately signed it with a cop at the door. Go, what do you sign this for, Now, it's not the cops fault. They say the cop was polite. Right. [00:03:32] It's the person sending the cop that's the issue they're trying to say the next time you vote for something we don't like, remember, tell all your friends a cop might show up at your door and start questioning you. And you might be in trouble whether you did something wrong or not. And you have to prove that you're innocent. [00:03:48] You stay. In one case, they have to call up the friend who was doing the petition, find out that the petition, I mean, he had to go through an incredible process to prove that it was him and that he signed a signature. There's already a process for this. When you send the cops to do it, it's clearly intimidation. [00:04:04] So I want more reporting on this. So Tampa Bay times isn't a joke publication. You know, it's it's they're doing straight news reporting here and they're not really taking a position on it. But we need to find out what's really going on. Because, again, he's not the only one who came forward and said that, you know, [00:04:21] he had a plainclothes police officer show up to his door. There's another person, a Lee County voter, Becky Castellanos, who had a similar interaction with police. She said that Florida Department of Law Enforcement Officer Gary Marinelli [00:04:38] knocked on her door last week. He showed his badge and gave her his card. He asked about a family member of hers saying that they could be a victim of fraud, so the officer did not mention what type of fraud was being investigated until they were brought inside. While Castellanos basically called her family member the one who the officer said [00:04:59] might be a victim of fraud. And then Castellanos basically said that she felt intimidated and was surprised, but not surprised when she learned that this was about amendment four. That's the ballot initiative that we're talking about here. The officer asked about the abortion petition her relatives signed. [00:05:15] And she said that, she said that that's that's what the officer was doing and sent a picture of it over one number on the date of birth appeared wrong, a three instead of a two, she said. But her relative confirmed it was his petition that he signed [00:05:33] and the officer accepted it. So in that case, it seems like there was an error, like a I don't know. No, no. If it was a significant enough error, they would have already taken it out. This is on like, okay, now we're coming and going okay. So now we're looking into is significant. Wait, if it's an insignificant error or 2 or 3, etc.. [00:05:51] Why are we talking about fraud? This isn't fraud. This is just putting down a wrong number by accident. Like are you trying like guys? So there is different ways that you investigate fraud and what some of the local authorities are saying is this isn't how you do it. [00:06:07] So that we it's not like we've never thought of fraud before. And petition signature gathering. We have a whole process for it. They've created a new process. And so to give you a sense of why this might matter, they they hate this ballot initiative, not only because it would basically legalize abortion [00:06:27] in Florida and they don't want that, but it's also going to drive out voters and they think they're going to vote against Republicans. Yeah, exactly. And they are going to vote against Trump. But even more so as some Republicans that are in danger of losing their seats. So they're trying to intimidate not only people in the future [00:06:44] from signing petitions like this. They're also trying to find any BS reason to pull the petition off the ballot. Okay. Yeah. And the third reason, Sarina, is that they if you go to minority communities and you start sending in cops and intimidating people, [00:07:00] that word spreads like wildfire and they want it to spread like wildfire so that then people are worried. And then when Trump goes on stage and says, now we should have cops at the voting stations, that then reinforces if you vote in a way that we don't like [00:07:16] or you sign a petition we don't like, you're going to be in a lot of trouble and we're going to try to use law enforcement against you. So that's and then they wonder, hey, why do you call us fascists? Because this is the kind of fascist intimidation that people do that does not belong in a democracy at all. [00:07:32] So let's go to graphic six here. Just a few more details about this. So it's unclear, according to the Tampa Bay times, how the Lee County voters petitions were flagged, the Lee County Supervisor of Elections office received a request from the state for only one voters signed petition, and Supervisor Tommy Doyle said it wasn't. [00:07:53] He wasn't sure why officers were showing up at the voters doors. So yeah, I mean, like, this is crazy. I want to know what's really going on here. Why are why are cops showing up at people's doorsteps and asking them about their signed petition? So as usual, we'll be principled here. [00:08:09] So I remember the loathsome ballot measures back in 2004 against gay marriage, and they put that in the swing states. The Republicans did to try to drive out voters to vote for George W Bush and against John Kerry. Unfortunately it worked. [00:08:24] In fact, that was the only popular vote the Republicans had won at a presidential level since the Berlin Wall came down. So unfortunately, that worked like a charm for the Republicans. And they did it through driving hatred, inequality and justice, etc. But those were real ballot measures that real people signed. [00:08:42] And if a Democrat said to me, should we go send cops to their houses and go, oh yeah, did you really sign it? Maybe we should arrest you. Oh, there's a two out of three. Okay. I'd say no, no no no no. If you have real evidence, evidence of some sort of fraud, [00:08:58] of course I'm going to hear that out. And we're going to use our regular process. But if you'd like to invent a new process with no evidence at all to intimidate right wing voters because I don't agree with them. No, the answer is hell no, because this isn't about that particular issue. As much as I hated that issue back in 2004, it's about democracy. [00:09:17] Are we going to let people vote? Are we going to do a real and fair process, or are we just going to rig it every time, depending on who's in office through different bullying intimidation tactics like this. Yeah. And Fox 13 also confirmed that supervisors the supervisor's office [00:09:33] in Orange County, Florida, said that state officials arrived in person last week to examine signatures. So you have, you know, officials in specific jurisdictions within Florida confirming that the state had sent people down to examine [00:09:50] the signatures and stuff like that. And and so, look, January 6th got a lot of attention for understandable reasons. Number one, it's at the presidential level. Two, they try to fake elector coup to to go along with the riot. But three, there was a giant riot at the Capitol. Of course, that's going to draw a lot of attention. But the way that most Republicans usually cheat is before the election. [00:10:09] So what they'll do is they'll purge voter rolls in Democratic areas, but not Republican areas. And then when you ask them, they go, well, I mean, there's some people who die, some people who move. We have to purge the vote. The rules that, yes, but there is a normal standard way of doing that And Brian Kemp and the Republicans in Georgia have mastered this. [00:10:26] They're actually doing it again this time around. So they're wiping away tons of Democratic voters. And then when you go to vote, they go, oh, sorry, you got you're not on the voter roll. You do a provisional ballot or no ballot, etc.. And that's a way of cheating ahead of time that Republicans have mastered. [00:10:42] Part of the reason they're so mad at Trump for cheating afterwards is like, you knucklehead, we got a perfectly good way to cheat, and now you're making a big spectacle out of it, and they're going to dive into this, and maybe they'll see all the dirty tricks we use to get rid of democracy and 8000 other ways. [00:10:59] So look, last thing is, once the ballot measure is passed, which is the purest form of democracy, right? Ballot measures also have some issues because they can be misleading. There's tons of advertising that goes into it, etc. But overall popular ballot measures are usually 9,080% of the time [00:11:17] progressive higher minimum wage. Let felons who served their time vote. Marijuana legalization, abortion, pro-choice, etc. We almost always win those money out of politics, etc. [00:11:32] Then Republicans, they've done this in Florida, they've done it in South Dakota. They've done it in many states. After you pass a ballot measure, they go, nah, I don't think so. You know what? There was a two instead of a three. There was this instead of that. In South Dakota. It was so brazen. They passed a ballot measure to stop the lawmakers from accepting [00:11:51] outright gifts from lobbyists. The lawmakers then turn around, invalidated a ballot measure that passed overwhelmingly in a red state, and then took a picture with lobbyist gifts bragging about it afterwards. They're rubbing your face in it. This is how they destroy democracy. [00:12:07] Thanks for watching The Young Turks really appreciate it. Another way to show support is through YouTube memberships. You'll get to interact with us more. There's live chat emojis, badges. 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