“Humiliation.” “Embarrassment.” “Trump a Bigger Loser than First Thought.”

Last week, the Arizona Republicans’ sham election “audit” ended with a whimper rather than a bang. Launched in April to help Donald Trump legitimize his false claims of voter fraud, the review of Phoenix-area ballots was – even by its own low standards – an incompetent mess. For months, would-be sleuths chased bizarre conspiracy theories, wasted taxpayer dollars and compromised private voter information. When the results were finally announced last week, they revealed that Joe Biden had not only won Arizona, but had in fact won it by an even larger margin than previously reported.

Not exactly what big lie believers were hoping for.

But the majority of Americans, those who reject the big lie, shouldn’t celebrate just yet. While the sham audit failed to substantiate Trump’s false fraud claims, Arizona Republicans’ goal was never really to overturn the last election – it was to lay the groundwork for overturning the next one. And it still may do just that.

To understand why the Arizona “audit” remains so dangerous to American democracy despite its lackluster results, it’s important to recognize that after leaving office, Trump and his fellow big liars have been far less interested in looking for evidence of non-existent fraud than in sowing doubt about our general system of elections. By that standard, the audit was far from a failure. Nearly a year after their state’s vote was first counted, Arizona Republicans were able to use the pretext of protecting “election integrity” to avoid fully conceding defeat. In doing so, they undermined a central element of the peaceful transfer of power – the idea that the losers of elections acknowledge the winners’ legitimacy.

At the same time, the Arizona Republican party’s fake election audit could undermine the credibility of real ones. Audits are an important tool for election officials – they help us understand the electorate and identify administrative issues, such as long lines, that can reduce access to the ballot. Most states conduct audits, and they’re one reason that, contrary to Trump and his allies’ wild claims, election fraud is extremely rare and difficult to get away with.

Impartially conducted recounts play a similarly important role in extremely close elections – and historically, the votes initially left uncounted are disproportionately cast by younger or more sporadic voters, who tend to support Democrats. If a close race results in a recount in 2022, or if a Trump-affiliated election official commits fraud on Republicans’ behalf, the Republican party will probably point to Democrats’ condemnation of the Arizona “audit” to attempt to delegitimize any genuine effort to protect the integrity of elections.

Finally, the Arizona audit has revealed that yet another norm of American democracy is supported by nothing more than both parties’ good faith. A year ago, despite then President Trump’s barrage of false fraud claims, it would have been hard to imagine that one of our two political parties could spend millions of taxpayer dollars attacking its own election and face no consequences whatsoever. Yet that’s where we are today.

It’s no surprise, then, that Republican elected officials are pushing the envelope even further. Some Arizona Republicans are demanding even more taxpayer-funded audits, and Republican politicians outside the state are demanding equally spurious “audits” of their own. In Colorado, a county election clerk is suspected of going one step further, helping accomplices break into her own office to steal voter data for a vigilante ballot review. Across the country, volunteer election workers are facing unprecedented harassment and even death threats, just for doing their jobs.

Morally speaking, it’s reprehensible that Trump and his Republican allies have doubled down on the big lie. As a practical matter, however, why would they stop now? If their strategy works, they might be able to hold on to power without having to worry about voters or elections. And if their strategy fails, there so far appears to be no cost to them.

There would, however, be an enormous cost to America. There is now a new norm in US politics: if Republicans lose a close election, they will not recognize the winner until they are, by whatever arbitrary metrics they come up with, satisfied with the integrity of the result. We are careening toward a system of government in which elections are never settled and politicians are allowed to keep competing for power long after the final results are in. In such a system of government, politicians like Donald Trump would be free to seek power through means other than elections – and after 6 January, it’s not hard to imagine what form those means might be.

But it’s not too late to turn Arizona’s sham audit into the spectacular failure that Donald Trump and his fellow big liars deserve. Democrats should not hesitate to tie the sham audit’s supporters directly to the violence of 6 January and to make it clear how much their reckless crusade cost taxpayers. Right now, Republican politicians undermine confidence in our elections because they think it will help them maintain power; if the incentives change, their behavior will, too.

The Biden administration can also do its part to ensure that undermining elections comes with consequences. The Department of Justice should never be used as a political weapon – but if politicians commit federal crimes in an effort to overturn a fair and free election, they should be fully prosecuted. To do anything less would be to suggest that elected officials are above the law. Lawmakers can discourage sham audits by making it a crime to knowingly spread false election information, while local election officials can do more to publish their audit and recount rules in advance, drawing a clear distinction between genuine election-protection measures and the kind of dangerous political stunts embraced by Trump and his Republican allies.

Ultimately, however, the single most important thing we can do in the face of an unprecedented threat to democracy is resist the temptation to ignore it. Republican politicians failed to overturn an election this time around, but they certainly don’t seem embarrassed. On the contrary, democracy’s opponents are acting more brazen than ever, and appear more confident that next time they’ll succeed. It’s up to us to take them seriously – and in doing so, to prove them wrong.

• David Litt is an American political speechwriter and New York Times bestselling author of Thanks Obama, and Democracy In One Book Or Less. He edits How Democracy Lives, a newsletter on democracy reform