“We were robbed” is an age-old kvetch in American politics. Candidates, who toil and suffer innumerable indignities while campaigning understandably will feel pain when votes tallies indicate it was all for naught. And, it must be admitted, election fraud and mischief do occur — although rarely on a scale that affects outcomes. In recent years, there have been very high profile instances of politicians losing but insisting they didn’t, such as Donald Trump and Stacey Abrams.

But the fact that election losers often deny they lost should not be waved away as a harmless foible, according to Matthew Germer, a fellow at the R Street Institute. He recently wrote a white paper that explains the importance of the defeated publicly conceding, and how to stop this norm from further erosion. My chat with Matt follows.