Larry Norden and Derek Tisler posted this analysis of one way in which election subversion could occur — undemocratic activities by rogue election officials.

What happens if such people are entrusted with administering our elections? We are witnessing the first glimpses now. In Colorado, a county clerk with connections to prominent election conspiracy theorists gave unauthorized access to the county’s voting systems. This access allowed the unauthorized person to copy the hard drives of Dominion voting equipment — a vendor targeted by many 2020 election conspiracy theorists — and share the copies publicly to spread disinformation. The secretary of state decertified the county’s voting equipment and ordered the county to replace the machines before the next election, in part because the unauthorized person leaked passwords for the voting system software. . . .

Lawmakers and election officials must act now to prevent such attempts to sabotage election administration in 2022 and 2024. While insider threat risks have not received much attention in recent years, they have been a central focus of security efforts in other sectors, and best practices, such as these from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, exist to prevent and respond to this activity.