President Donald Trump did not win the 2020 presidential election, but there are 193 candidates in 41 states on the November ballot who won’t reject his “Big Lie” that he did. Half of all Republicans still believe his falsehoods, and few candidates are willing to publicly counter them.

Trump paid no real penalty for his election lies; voters elected him to a second term anyway. And he hasn't given up on his desire to control the outcome of elections. On Friday, his Justice Department sued to block the certification of the Alaska Senate race if the Republican incumbent loses. Trump’s consistent attempts to meddle with election results have done lasting damage. Distrust in institutions is so rife that nearly one in four Americans thinks political violence may be necessary to save the country.

One third of Americans harbor doubts that the November elections will be conducted fairly. And half of all voters think that if Republicans lose their majority in the US House, Trump won’t accept the results.

America won’t fully heal this wound as long as we keep electing candidates who deny legitimate election results. Candidates who can’t be truthful about something as demonstrably false as Trump’s claim that 2020 was “rigged” should not be trusted with the power of elected office.

The list of election deniers running for office includes Republican nominees for governor in places expected to be some of the most pivotal battlegrounds in 2028: Andy Biggs in Arizona voted against certifying the 2020 election as a member of Congress; Byron Donalds in Florida also voted against certifying those results; Rick Jackson in Georgia ran ads comparing Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “Judas” for refusing to bow to Trump’s demand to change Georgia’s election results; John James in Michigan called the 2020 election “rigged and manipulated”; Greg Abbott of Texas ordered a “forensic audit” of votes in the state at Trump’s behest; and Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin refused to certify the 2020 election results for Arizona and Pennsylvania as a member of Congress.

If elected in November, most of them will have the power to sign the list of presidential electors and transmit it to Washington — a powerful role that, if abused, could make a sham of our representative democracy.

For the last six years, legitimate election results have been protected both by the courts and by the decentralized structure of the US election system. That has prevented rogue election officials from refusing to certify results or even overturning elections. But Trump has also worked to undermine the process with sweeping executive actions aimed at shifting critical election powers away from states. Election officials in both red and blue states have said they now are preparing to defend against “federal interference” in November’s elections.

State governments serve as a crucial constitutional bulwark against federal overreach, including attempts by the executive branch to nationalize or interfere with elections. But Trump’s supporters in state legislatures and the executive branch have worked to undermine these checks and balances. They’ve restricted access to voting, dismantled Voting Rights Act protections through redistricting and turned over state voting rolls so the federal government could target immigrants.

Each of these actions has made the legislative branches less responsive to voters, suppressed the public’s ability to hold their officials to account, and made states more subservient to a dysfunctional federal government.

This movement will continue if Americans elect candidates who support Trump’s 2020 lies. According to an interactive list compiled by States United Action, a nonpartisan, pro-democracy organization, there are 163 election deniers running for Congress and 30 seeking statewide office. The organization defines an election denier as someone who “either participated in spreading his false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, who refused to certify the legitimate results of that election, or who attempted to overturn those results.”

That list of deniers includes candidates running for secretary of state in Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Nebraska, Wisconsin and Vermont and candidates for attorney general in Arizona, Idaho, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, North Dakota, Michigan, Vermont and Rhode Island. If elected, each could be in a politically potent place to allow Trump to control the elections process and shape the legal arguments for the inevitable challenges.