As this is being written, there is still no elected President for these United States of America, but the process to ensure every vote is counted that was justly and lawfully cast in the 2020 Election should continue unencumbered — or what are we actually doing here?

As expected, telegraphed from miles away months ago, absentee and mail-in ballots are being targeted by the current administration as being fraudulent.

“Millions and millions of people voted for us,” President Donald Trump said, addressing a gathering of his ardent base in the wee hours Wednesday morning. “A very sad group of people is trying to disenfranchise that group of people. We were getting ready for a big celebration. We were winning everything. And all of a sudden it was just called off.

“This is a fraud on the American public,” he stated. “This is an embarrassment to our country.”

Voting is a fraud? An embarrassment?

Less than 24 hours earlier, on Election Day morning, Trump said during an interview on “Fox & Friends” that he would declare himself the winner of the 2020 election “only when there’s victory; if there’s victory,” adding that “there’s no reason to play games.”

With millions of votes still outstanding on Wednesday morning — nothing new in a Presidential Election, especially one with a historic turnout — Trump declared himself the winner, something he said he wouldn’t do.

“Frankly, we did win this election,” he said.

Meanwhile, the President’s opponent Joe Biden, who spoke earlier in the night, insisted all votes be counted.

“It’s not my place or Donald Trump’s place to declare who has won this election,” Biden stated. “That’s the decision of the American people.”

Trump insisted that “surprise ballot dumps” were to blame.

“Last night, I was leading, often solidly, in many key States, in almost all instances Democrat run & controlled. Then, one by one, they started to magically disappear as surprise ballot dumps were counted.”

There were no “surprise ballot dumps,” as resident fact-checker Daniel Dale and many other experts will be quick to tell you. Dale has made a career out of checking Trump and Biden’s statements, the former’s likely providing him plenty of overtime pay. A ballot dump happens when a large number of votes are added to the public tally after they are counted, such as precincts reporting. There was nothing nefarious to it.

“Votes were counted,” Dale pointed out succinctly.

“The bottom line is that the president and some of his prominent supporters are trying to convince you that there is something illegitimate about legitimate votes being counted,” Dale stated.

It’s maddening that a candidate for any office would want to undermine the democratic process on which this country was founded by spouting conspiracy theories and talk about fraud when there is simply nothing there to back it up. That only leads to vitriol, more divisiveness and the kind of intimidation tactics we’re already seeing under the guise of supposed watchdogs.

It should be infuriating to all voters, regardless of who received their vote.

According to the Associated Press, Biden has won the most votes out of any candidate in history, gaining more than 70 million votes nationwide as of Wednesday afternoon, surpassing the 69.4 million votes former President Barack Obama won in 2008. And Trump isn’t far behind Biden. Voters came out in droves. Sampson County and North Carolina saw unprecedented voter turnout, three-quarters of the registered populous.

And now those millions upon millions of people will have to wait, just as the candidates do, for the results. It’s that simple.

“We knew because of the unprecedented early vote, the mail-in vote, that it’s going to take a while,” Biden attested on Tuesday night. “We’re going to have to be patient until the hard work of tallying the votes is finished. And it ain’t over until every vote, every ballot is counted.”

In a tweet flagged by Twitter, Trump stated “they are trying to STEAL the election. We will never let them do it. Votes cannot be cast after the Polls are closed!” With no basis in fact, it is a statement that only serves to further stoke the fire.

U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a Republican congressman out of Illinois, was to the point when replying to the President’s tweet. “Stop. Full stop. The votes will be counted and you will either win or lose. And America will accept that. Patience is a virtue.”

Full stop.