The group working to ensure abortion access in Florida has nearly reached the number of signatures it needs under state law to put a proposed constitutional amendment on the 2024 ballot. As of last week, Floridians Protecting Freedom had almost 864,000 of the required 891,523 validated signatures.

This is important news. The voters of Florida must have the chance to speak on this issue, rather than allowing the Florida Legislature, which passed an extreme, six-week abortion ban in May, to force its decision on the rest of us.

The ballot measure is not a done deal yet. The state is trying to block voters from having their say. Attorney General Ashley Moody has filed a court challenge regarding the wording of the summary that would appear on the ballot.

Getting the signatures is a crucial step. The abortion-rights group has until Feb. 1 to submit all the signatures and meet other requirements, including that the signatures come from at last half of Florida’s congressional districts. The group has said it’s on track to submit 1.4 million signatures for validation by the state. That should be more than enough — almost half a million more than required — even allowing for some signatures to be tossed out as invalid.

It’s a milestone in the fight to let voters decide in a state where Republicans have mostly succeeded in locking down control of government. But it’s something else, too. The large number of signatures gathered, 1.4 million, is an indication of just how far the Florida Legislature has strayed from what many people in this state actually want — not that the Republican Legislature pays much heed to that anymore.