Campaign begins to protect abortion rights in Florida, and its first challenge is getting on ballot

Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and other groups are launching an effort to place a constitutional amendment on Florida’s 2024 general election ballot that would both undo the six-week abortion ban that Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law last month and allow the procedure to take place up to 24 weeks into a pregnancy. However, not only would this proposal need to win 60% of the vote in order to pass, it also needs to overcome several hurdles to even get on the ballot in the first place.

First, abortion rights advocates need to turn in about 892,000 valid signatures by Feb. 1, a total that represents 8% of the total number of votes cast in the last presidential election. That’s not all, though, because Florida requires that they hit this target by collecting 8% of the districtwide vote from at least half of the state’s 28 congressional districts, a task that got tougher after DeSantis pushed through an aggressive gerrymander last year.