Cole, who won the the statewide injunction shielding municipal officials from having to submit Form 6 financial disclosures, filed the lawsuit on behalf of the nonprofit Save Our Voters From Misleading Ballot Language, Inc., formed earlier this week, and two South Florida voters — Thomas F. Campenni, former mayor of Stuart, and Michael W. Davey, former mayor of Key Biscayne.

“ What we're trying to accomplish here is not to get [the proposed amendment] off the ballot. We're just trying to get the wording fixed so that it is a fair and neutral, non-biased, accurate ballot question,” he told VoxPopuli in a Thursday phone call.

Cole pointed to the way questions are framed during a poll as an example.

“The way you ask the question affects the results, and this [ballot] question is so misleading it could seriously impact the vote and that would not be proper,” he said. He added, “The election can’t be rigged by having a ballot question that is so biased that it’s just going to get people to vote for it even without really knowing what’s happening.”

But if the court rules that the proposed amendment is “biased,” Cole said that a 2011 Florida statute gives Attorney General James Uthmeier 10 days to rewrite the amendment with “fair language.”

The lawsuit details several key instances in which the proposed ballot amendment is "misleading and false." Here are the high points:

• The proposed amendment title — “Save Our Homes From Excessive Property Taxes”— is not neutral and does not describe what the amendment will do if passed. Cole lists several titles from other property tax amendments over the past 20 years in the lawsuit for comparison. [We picked three to illustrate below.] “If you look at these, they’re just not at all like this one. I used to play a game with my kids: Which one of these is not like the others? If you put them all together, this one is not like all the others. This is just fundamentally different than these other titles. And these other titles basically said what this was, what their proposal was. This title is just a campaign slogan.”
  

            Ad Valorem Property Taxation: Assessments, Exemptions, Limitations and Homesteads

            Property Tax Limit For Nonhomestead Property; Additional Homestead Exemption For New Homestead Owners

            Homestead Ad Valorem Tax Credit For Deployed Military Personnel

• The ballot summary endorses the proposed amendment with “three political taglines”: “ensuring fairness for Florida residents”; “protecting small businesses”; “ensuring fairness for Florida residents.” The lawsuit states that a ballot summary is meant to “explain what an amendment does, not advocate for its adoption.”
  

• The ballot summary makes promises about protections for small businesses that the proposed amendment does not include. The amendment provides no special provisions for small businesses, which may, the lawsuit states, see higher taxes when cities raise millage rates to offset the loss of ad valorem revenues.
  

• The ballot summary is not transparent about the true tax savings. It states the first $250,000 of a homestead property’s value would be excluded from being taxed. But that would not occur until 2028, which is not advertised. In 2027, only $150,000 of a home’s value is exempt from taxes. The ballot summary also falsely promises “a schedule for full elimination” of non-school property taxes. However, the amendment leaves that up to local governments. The amendment puts procedures in place for municipalities to decide whether to grant further exemptions rather than making it a guarantee.  
  

• Core services are not funded. While the ballot summary states that the proposed amendment is “ensuring funding for core services,” the lawsuit says the amendment “does not guarantee funding for police, fire protection, schools, infrastructure, or any other public service” and “is likely to decrease the revenues available to local governments to fund core services.”
  

• The ballot summary states that the amendment is “ensuring fairness for Florida residents.” However, the lawsuit points out that the amendment is not fair to renters and new arrivals to the state. Renters will see no tax benefit on a tax cut solely for homeowners, and, the lawsuit notes they may actually get hit with higher costs as landlords will likely raise rents as a result of higher millage rates, which cities will raise to offset the loss of ad valorem revenues. And for the first time, taxation will be based on duration of residency: anyone who moves to Florida after Dec. 31, 2026, will need to wait five years before being able to receive the full $250,000 homestead exemption.