Election subversion

Election subversion can involve a range of measures to change the outcome of a vote, including voter suppression, election denial, disinformation, intimidation and other legal or illegal attempts to not count or disqualify certain votes.

United States
Richard L. Hasen outlines three main avenues for election subversion in the United States: 1) disqualify votes where a partisan body justifies changing the outcome (2) fraudulent or suppressive election administration and (3) actors disrupting the voting, the counting of votes, or the assumption of power by true winner.

Disqualification of votes
Rules that make voting more difficult for some, for example, can become a pretext for disqualifying votes, regardless of whether or not it justifies such a radical action. The independent state legislature theory in the U.S., for example, would allow state legislatures to unilaterally disqualify votes and send their own electors regardless of the vote outcome. The use of the theory was rejected in Moore v. Harper by the US Supreme Court in 2023.

Election insecurity
The lack of election security best-practices creates opportunities for compromised election systems/ballots by third-parties which can also foster mistrust of the results even without evidence of tampering.

Intimidation and/or replacement of election officials
By major candidates calling into question the integrity of elections, the ensuing threats towards election officials have led to hundreds of resignations in the U.S. for example, leading to concerns of understaffing and some vacancies being filled by hyper-partisans interested in election subversion.

Question/deny legitimacy of election
This tactic to deny unfavorable results weakens the power of the winners through decreasing the number of citizens who find them legitimate, potentially leading to a breakdown in the rule of law as was seen on January 6, 2021 in the United States. These claims can also be used to try to justify the manipulation of election results in the courts or other bodies of power such as legislatures.

Vote buying
This happens when someone offers money in return for a voter voting a certain way.