Last week, Secretary of State Kurt Browning pulled the plug on a computer system that has been used for the past 12 months to tally and track signatures as they are certified by county election supervisors. Hometown Democracy organizers had questioned the accuracy of election division counts, and serious discrepancies between state and county numbers were uncovered.

For at least this election cycle, Browning will use paper records for the official totals. "I want to have a high level of confidence," he told reporters, "in certifying ballot placement for initiative signatures."

With fewer than three weeks left before the Feb. 1 deadline for amendments to reach the November ballot, Browning might as well have been waving a white flag. If the state can't readily tell petition groups how close they are to meeting the necessary threshold, then they approach the deadline with blinders.

The business opponents of Hometown Democracy are doing their best to contribute to this chaos. The Hometown amendment would require local referendums for any change in city and county development growth plans, and the Florida Chamber of Commerce and Associated Industries of Florida are treating it like Armageddon.

Already, this showdown has produced a 2006 amendment that increased the approval threshold for constitutional amendments to 60 percent and a 2007 law that gives petition signers the right to later remove their names.

On the ground, both sides are waving checkbooks at petition-gathering firms. But the two business-backed opponents are taking this gamesmanship to entirely new lows.

They first tried simply to outbid Hometown Democracy, inviting the top 60 signature gatherers to a meeting where they were offered three times as much money to change sides. Then they sent petition signers a preposterous letter from former House Speaker John Thrasher: "Unless you want higher property taxes, higher utility bills and Florida's scenic beauty destroyed by Big Developers, you will certainly want to revoke your signature from their petition."

The latest stunt is a coordinated attempt to flood elections supervisors with an alternative petition that the business opponents have no interest in actually seeing on the ballot. Since Jan. 2, according to Floridians for Smarter Growth director Michael Caputo, "hundreds of thousands" of these counter petitions have been submitted.

The devious intent is to overwhelm election supervisors so they lack the manpower to certify Hometown Democracy petitions before the deadline. The business groups have Hometown organizer Lesley Blackner in their crosshairs and show not a hint of remorse.

"I would hope they do flood it," says Associated Industries chief executive Barney Bishop. "The point of the fact is that we are going to make sure she doesn't get on the ballot. ... Her ox is getting gored? Too bad. Grow up. We play for keeps."

"This is not a high-minded process," says Caputo, who is in charge of the counter petition. "Signatures are a commodity. You pay for them. ... We will engage them on every battlefield they choose."

The irony is that there is a thoughtful and persuasive case to be made against the Hometown amendment. But the business operatives have chosen shock and awe. The same chamber that has decried the overuse of ballot initiatives has instead offered one of its own, to be used primarily as a battering ram.
These business groups may succeed in keeping the Hometown Democracy amendment off the ballot in November. But if the amendment ever does make it to the voters, the bully tactics won't be forgotten.