In the wake of the 2020 presidential election, Republicans have pushed sweeping changes to voting laws across the country, using false claims of voter fraud as their justification. Even in Florida, a state Donald J. Trump won easily, Republicans enacted a more targeted overhaul of elections law in lock step with Mr. Trump’s allegations. Several voting rights groups have sued the state, claiming that the new measures disenfranchise voters in the name of appeasing the former president.
Representative Byron Donalds, a newly elected Florida Republican, believes the reaction to the new law is misguided and overblown. In an interview with The New York Times, he sought to explain Republican actions as distinct from Mr. Trump’s false claims, and in line with voter concerns. He argued that his state’s new law, and similar ones across the country, would inspire renewed confidence in the election process.
Mr. Donalds won his House seat after serving in the Florida Legislature. He grew up in Brooklyn and worked in finance and banking before entering politics.
The interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
What did you think of how the 2020 election went in Florida? Did you think it was administered properly, with no evidence of fraud?
It was administered very properly. We had the best election laws in the country. Our secretary of state or local officials follow the law, as you know, as it’s written, to a T, and we were pretty much done by 10 o’clock that night.
Do you believe the false claims by former President Trump that the 2020 election was rigged?
I think what happened is that in several key counties and key states, election law was not followed. That’s clear. It’s crystal clear. You have a federal judge in Michigan that said as much. You have two counties in Wisconsin where the local election officials chose not to follow election laws and cited Covid-19 as the reason. You have a State Supreme Court of Pennsylvania that did not follow election law written by the state legislature there. You had the issues in Arizona, you had the consent decree in Georgia — that’s clear violations of the Constitution.
Do you think, as former President Trump states, this amounts to widespread fraud that would have changed the outcome of the election?
When you violate election law, and you have other bodies or other positions in our governmental apparatus that do not follow the written law, that leads to problems.
So I just want to make sure I have this straight. You think that those problems happened elsewhere in the country, but not in Florida?
Because in Florida, we followed our law.
The Florida Legislature, where you once served, just passed an election reform measure. Why was that necessary if there was no fraud?
The right to vote is sacrosanct. We all believe that. And the security of that ballot is also sacrosanct.
And there should not be some other party that comes in between the voter casting their ballot and the election officer receiving that ballot and counting it. So I think getting rid of ballot harvesting is a great thing that we did. The other thing was that we tightened up the process of our people getting mail-in ballots.
You know, I think the process we have now going forward in our state is actually a good one. Everybody’s free to request their ballot. They prove who they are, that’s a good thing. They receive their ballot, they vote. It’s all about security.
Ballot harvesting was already outlawed in parts of the state. And new lawsuits claim that the real impact of the identification measures will be another barrier suppressing Black and Latino voters. What’s your response to that?
I don’t pay any attention to those claims. I think the state will win in court. Voter ID claims — about how it disenfranchises minority communities — have been widely debunked. It is actually quite simple to get an ID. You’re talking to somebody who’s had a photo ID since he was 13 years old, when I grew up in Brooklyn, New York. It’s not the issue that it’s always made up to be, you know, by my friends on the other side of the aisle.
In Florida, Republicans have taken advantage of things like ballot harvesting. They’ve made inroads with Black and Latino voters to win elections. Is there any risk this new law hurts your own party?
No, I haven’t heard that.
It was Republicans who brought back ballot harvesting in Florida under former Governor Bush and embraced widespread mail-in voting. What changed from then to now?
I mean, OK, but that doesn’t mean I have to support it.
I understand. I’m interested in what you think changed in the party from then to now, for a whole community of Republicans to say that’s something that they don’t support?
I think the premise of your question is wrong. It’s not about what changed in the party. Political parties are made up of people, individuals who vote and politicians and candidates who run for office. That’s the basis of a political party. There’s no monolithic line of thinking that shifts every two to four years. That’s not the case. I can’t speak to what happened when former people were elected. I can speak to myself and what I’ve done.
