Another authoritative and conclusive election has taken place, supervised by hundreds of thousands of election officials. Despite years of harassment these public servants have faced, they are continually accused of being part of an implausible large-scale conspiracy. This conspiracy is supposedly led by the out-of-power party with the intent to manipulate an election and hide all traces.

Against all evidence, many still hold the belief that the Democratic opposition stealthily overpowered the Trump administration in 2020 to unfairly win an election by 7 million popular votes and 70 electoral votes. Furthermore, they believe that the Biden administration mysteriously lost this hypothetical power to manipulate elections while holding executive control in 2024.

Just hours after President-elect Donald Trump’s predicted victory in the 2024 election, conspiracy theories started circulating among his opponents. On the left, there were allegations that “the mathematics simply didn’t match,” that 20 million ballots were “missing,” or that Elon Musk’s Starlink was responsible for uploading counterfeit votes in Trump’s favor. There was also confusion about why voters might divide their votes between Trump and a Democrat.

On the right, Trump’s supporters claimed that the “20 million missing ballots” were actually evidence that the 2020 election had been manipulated and that there’s no viable way President Biden could have garnered 81 million votes that year.

For those involved in the electoral process, especially election officials across the nation, these allegations are familiar and draining. It’s important to note, these accusations are unfounded.

Millions of ballots weren’t absent – they were being counted. The 2024 election will confirm that voter turnout was slightly lower than the record-breaking 2020 turnout. For those questioning “missing votes,” the 2024 election will rank as the second-highest in terms of ballots cast and voter turnout in over a century, only behind the 2020 turnout.

As for split votes, it’s a common occurrence. Sometimes, voters who dislike both presidential candidates decide to leave that section blank on their ballots. This is a normal phenomenon. Neither Republicans in Arizona, Nevada, and Wisconsin, nor Democrats in 2020 manipulated the system to achieve their desired results. We have the paper ballots to corroborate this.

Those paper ballots are crucial. Trump’s 2024 victory was confirmed in a verified election with over 95% paper ballots, including all the ballots in the swing states. Hand audits of those ballots are almost complete and will validate the results.

Similarly, Mr. Biden’s 2020 victory was also verified in an election with over 95% audited paper ballots. The math checks out because the ballots do, and the election officials have demonstrated their work.

We are certain about the winners of the last two presidential elections, thanks to the paper ballots, audits, and unprecedented election litigation and court scrutiny. In several court cases, losing candidates couldn’t produce a shred of evidence that questioned the 2020 election outcome.

When Rudy Giuliani and Kari Lake were sued for defamation over their false claims, they could have defended themselves with evidence. Instead, they accepted liability. Fox News settled its defamation case with Dominion Voting Systems for almost $800 million rather than trying to prove their claims. A group of respected conservative legal scholars further confirmed the 2020 election was “Lost, not Stolen.”

Regardless of whether these theories come from the right or left, they persist, and our nation’s election officials are worried about the lasting impact. Gabriel Sterling, chief operating officer of the Georgia Secretary of State’s office stated, “Ideas that Musk’s Starlink or black box voting might change votes plant seeds that will germinate into deeper conspiracy theories, thus further undermining faith in elections and institutions.”

Bill Gates, Maricopa County Supervisor confirmed, “People who propagate conspiracy theories without evidence that tabulation machines have been breached or that deceased individuals have cast votes by the thousands harm our democracy, no matter where the allegations come from on the political spectrum.”

Our electoral system is incredibly decentralized, with nearly 10,000 different election jurisdictions nationwide, varying in technologies and procedures. Our process is managed by hundreds of thousands of election officials from both parties nationwide. Every voter registration requires ID under federal law, and our voter records are as accurate as they’ve ever been. In the extremely rare instances where fraud is attempted, it is detected and prosecuted. It’s practically impossible to manipulate a major election in the United States.

However, foreign adversaries and domestic opportunists know how to exploit concerns about the security of American elections. They’ve employed a more efficient strategy to convince us against all evidence that our elections are being stolen. They’ve become experts at using the losing side’s disappointment to create a fantasy world of election denial and to incite fear, anger, and hatred towards our fellow citizens, including our public servants. We witnessed how this anger can lead to violence on Jan. 6, 2021.

Indulging in these delusions could jeopardize our power as voters. Worse still, our susceptibility to these false claims aids our adversaries, and endangers public servants. If we become a nation where both parties can only accept the integrity of our electoral system when they win, we are truly lost as a democracy.

David Becker is the executive director and founder of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Center for Election Innovation & Research. He previously served as a trial attorney in the voting section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. He also works as a CBS election law contributor.