(Tallahassee, Florida) Florida Secretary of State Kurt Browning has formally ratified results of Florida’s general election, including Amendment 2, which limits marriage to opposite-sex couples and bans civil unions.

The official count was 4,890,883 to 3,008,026. That was 61.9 percent of the vote for the amendment. Florida requires that constitutional amendments must have more than 60 percent to be approved.

In addition to banning gay marriage and civil unions, the amendment also could be used to deny partner benefits to unmarried couples who live together.

The amendment says, “Inasmuch as marriage is the legal union of only one man and one woman, no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized.”

Florida already had a law restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples, but supporters of the amendment said the law could be overturned in court.

The state was one of three this month that approved constitutional bans on gay marriage.  The others were California, where same-sex marriage had been legal, and Arizona.

Florida Red & Blue, which fought against the proposed amendment, filed a complaint with the Florida Elections Commission alleging that Florida4Marriage – the organization behind the measure – encouraged donors to give money to Florida Family Action Inc., a not-for-profit agency that then turned money over to Florida4Marriage.

By donating to the non-profit, donors do not have to be identified. People giving money directly to Florida4Marriage would be required to have their names filed with the commission, making the names accessible to the public.

Red & Blue called for an investigation by the commission and criminal charges.

Last year, it was discovered that the state GOP was bankrolling the amendment effort.

An investigation by the St. Petersburg Times into funding for the Florida4Marriage found that, of the $193,000 that had been raised by the group, $150,000 came from a single donor – the Florida Republican Party.