A bill that aims to prevent internal breaches in elections has passed the Colorado Legislature and it makes a number of changes that we think were necessary and probably overdue.

The bill formally enacts several emergency rules that Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold’s office put in place to prevent new breaches in security protocols, including taking images of sensitive election computer software without following proper protocols, according to reporting by The Daily Sentinel’s Charles Ashby.

“Since the 2020 election, we have seen election officials in Colorado and in other states compromise voting equipment and breach election security rules in an attempt to prove unfounded conspiracy theories,” Griswold said. “This first-in-the-nation legislation makes it a felony to compromise voting equipment and increases protections against those seeking to harm elections from within.”

This measure was prompted in large part by our own Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who did the exact things the new law bars. Oddly enough, in her quest to prove that there was large-scale fraud in the 2020 election, based on false information and conspiracy theories, Peters did shed light on a real area of election insecurity: rogue clerks.

Peters and her chief deputy, Belinda Knisley, are facing a 13-count grand jury indictment on numerous felony criminal charges of tampering with election equipment and misconduct in office for their actions. However, under this new law they could be charged with felonies for simply copying those hard drives without following procedure.

Franky, we were surprised this wasn’t already illegal.

Intentionally damaging or compromising election equipment seems like something that should have been outlawed when the use of these systems was first adopted. Still, better late than never.

Election security is extremely important, but we need to focus on issues that are real problems. Clerks and people working in elections offices, while normally very professional and trustworthy people, are still people. Sometimes you will get someone like Peters who does not respect our system and decides to take matters into her own hands. In that case, the law needs to spell out the consequences.

We should also say that individuals who do commit voter fraud should have the hammer brought down on them, as well. Swift and significant penalties for engaging in voter fraud is one of the reasons that it remains rare in this country.

We also think there is room for federal legislation around the issue of insider tampering in elections. Just as there are federal laws against voter intimidation, there should be federal laws outlawing the intentional tampering with voting equipment.

While most election laws and practices are left up to the state, the federal government has a responsibility to ensure our voting rights are protected. We think this falls into that federal responsibility.

Hopefully this law won’t ever need to be used in the future. The possibility of being charged with a felony should be enough deterrent to keep this from happening again. Still, at least if it does happen again, we have specific consequences at the ready.

Grand Junction Daily Sentinel editorial board