Dear ACLU supporter,

We’re less than three weeks from Election Day, the early voting period is even sooner, and absentee ballots are already being mailed. We’ve been preparing for this moment for months by challenging voter suppression in the legislature and courts and empowering people like you to make sure your voice is heard.

But the threats to civil liberties aren’t just the voter suppression barriers we’re overcoming to get to the ballot box: you’ll find some of them on the ballot itself.

We are working to stop the passage of three amendments: amendments 5, 6, and 8. These three amendments — which, were placed on the ballot by legislators, not voters — all represent an overreach of the legislature, creeping in to control ever more parts of our lives.

Amendment 5 is a power play by politicians in Tallahassee to give themselves more control over the courts, breaking down the long-standing checks and balances between the legislature and the judiciary on which our rights depend.

Similarly, Amendment 6 is an intrusion by legislators into our constitutional right to privacy. This amendment would limit women’s access to reproductive healthcare and dictate private medical decisions that should be made between a woman and her doctor.

And finally, Amendment 8 is the misleadingly-named “Religious Freedom Amendment,” which would remove a century-old protection against the entagling of government and religion and create a constitutional right for taxpayer funding of religious activities.

Whether you’re voting by mail, voting early, or voting on Election Day, you need to know what’s at stake in this election.

Go all the way down the ballot, and protect the rights of all Floridians.

ACLU of Florida