As anticipated, despite our hopes to the contrary, election night 2020 has gone without a clear presidential winner. Of course, after a brief message from Joe Biden reassuring everyone that all votes would be counted and that he believes he can come out on top, Donald Trump has reacted exactly how everyone (including him) predicted.

Trump gave a speech claiming that his current leads in certain states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, where many votes have not yet been counted, mean that he’s won and that the counting of perfectly legitimate ballots must then stop—and that he plans to demand the Supreme Court make that happen. Though we all knew it was coming, from his own words over the course of the campaign, it was still appalling to watch it unfold.

Of course, his supporters will make excuses for this behavior, especially if he winds up winning, which IS completely possible at this point. However, that does not make any of this any less authoritarian or unacceptable. There is absolutely no legal or rational basis to stop the normal counting of votes. The only basis is that Trump knows the votes counted later are likely to lean strongly towards Biden and could very well end Trump’s presidency. He would rather throw out legitimate votes than lose. He cares nothing for fair elections, his constant feigned fretting over fraud no more than a way to enable himself to undermine election results.

The fact is, right now, we just don’t know who will win. Several states that are still counting votes (again, a totally normal process exacerbated by some factors this year that we all already knew about) are just too close to call, and it’s possible that the remaining ballots could ultimately change the current state of the numbers. Every vote must be counted, and only then will we have a winner.