And I think the really big target is 2024 because a lot of the people who are going to be chosen in the 2022 elections are the ones that are going to be running the 2024 elections. So what can be done? I mean, we're looking down the pike at the November midterms. But what you've outlined is a very precarious situation, when such a cross section of Americans across the political divide stop having faith in these institutions. MARTIN: And what does that look like? I mean, it's one thing to just keep raising awareness about the issue.

And we've got to bolster those institutions and people that can help assure that our elections continue to be run fairly and are done with confidence. And then you really don't have a working democracy when people don't trust election results. HASEN: When people start losing confidence in the election process - and already, we've seen it in the Republican base, thanks to Trump's relentless claims that the last election was stolen - that could start spreading now to the left and to the center. It's the idea that, well, I wasn't happy that my side lost, but the election was fair and square, and I'll regroup and organize the next time. When you think about what makes a democracy work, it's what political scientists call loser's consent. MARTIN: I mean, that - you just underscored what could be so damaging, right? There is this follow-on effect that when election deniers are put in these positions, the voters who did support those election officials aren't going to trust them. If that's true, not only might they be willing to do something to try to even the score, but even if they try to run elections fairly, are the rest of the people in the area going to believe that the elections are run fairly after they've embraced this false claim that the last election was stolen? And so it really can both hurt voter confidence and also hurt the actual administration of elections.

2, we're replacing those people in some cases - or we have the risk of replacing people - who either believe or say they believe that the last election was stolen. And the first part, we're losing people who are skilled at running elections. HASEN: Well, I think it's kind of a double whammy that the country faces. MARTIN: What's your biggest concern about the current momentum that election deniers seem to have right now? He is director of UCLA's Safeguarding Democracy Project. We have called up professor Rick Hasen at UCLA School of Law. Yet, as you just heard, candidates who deny the outcome are winning office in battleground states across the country, including Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin.

So it's worth repeating - there is no evidence of widespread election fraud during the 2020 presidential election.

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