Democracy and Elections are two separate things. They are not one in the same.
Democracy is the foundation upon which elections are built on top of.
Suppose elections are tampered with or publicly vilified or otherwise put into question, doubt, or suspicion by a small group of people.
Perceiving there to be fraud, the public's confidence in democracy begins to be shaken
Neighbors become suspicious of each other and citizens blame one another. If these fissures become too great, eventually the bottom of the pyramid will crumble
with the pyramid broken, the pieces are flipped
The result when the pyramid is inverted.
But notice for the pyramid to be flipped, it is not sufficient simply for the election to be fraudulent, public support for Democracy itself must first crumble. Therefore in response to a questionable election, in order to prevent fissures from forming we must resist the urge to begin fighting amongst ourselves and instead join arms with our neighbors to build a firewall in support of democracy, even if the election does not go our way.
It is more important to preserve a collective voice in support of democracy than it is to have any particular election go our way,
even if there is fraud.
Of course we don't want fraud in an election. But do this and likely your neighbor, who may even be from the opposite political persuasion may very well join arms with you as well. His politics can eventually be changed with sufficient reasoning and good arguments. You do not need to go to war with him to fix the problem.
Any voice that stands in support of this you should consider your ally.
Elections can be fixed, fraud is temporary, and cannot survive forever if the base of the pyramid stands firm. The provocateurs and instigators will eventually be caught or otherwise rendered irrelevant.
Bringing back democracy once it's gone is much harder.
Don't let one "bad" election destroy your faith in the basic concept of democracy.
Hold the line