Trump tweets 'STOP THE COUNT!' But if the vote were stopped, Biden would win the presidency.

• President Donald Trump on Thursday tweeted "STOP THE COUNT!"
• If election officials stopped counting votes right now, it would give former Vice President Joe Biden the necessary electoral votes to defeat Trump.
• Biden needs only 17 more electoral votes to win. He's ahead of Trump in both Arizona and Nevada, which collectively would give him the necessary votes.

President Donald Trump on Thursday called for election officials to stop counting votes, but as the count currently stands, he would not be reelected if that happened.

"STOP THE COUNT!" Trump tweeted.

At the moment, Biden has 253 electoral votes and Trump has 214, according to Decision Desk HQ. A candidate needs 270 to win the presidency.

Biden is ahead of Trump in both Arizona and Nevada, which have not yet been called by Decision Desk HQ. If vote counting stopped right now and the election was called, the two states would give Biden 17 electoral votes and he would hit 270 votes overall.

Though Trump is ahead in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina, three states that also remain uncalled, collectively those states would not give him enough electoral votes to defeat Biden.

In short, it's not in Trump's interests for vote counting to cease. He would lose the election to Biden based on the current vote count.

Since polls closed on election night, the president has baselessly claimed that the election is being stolen, suggesting a conspiracy to disenfranchise Republican voters is afoot. There's no evidence of this.

The 2020 election was always expected to be messy because of an unprecedented number of mail-in votes. It's estimated roughly 65 million Americans voted by mail this year, largely because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

For months before the election, Trump pushed the unsubstantiated assertion that mail-in voting would lead to widespread voter fraud. In truth, voter fraud is extremely rare in the US.

Trump has also repeatedly asserted that no votes after election should be counted, but that's not how the process works. There are never full results on election night, as officials in states across the country have days or even weeks to count and certify results (laws and deadlines vary from state to state). Moreover, many states allow absentee ballots to arrive after Election Day, including from US service members overseas.

After Trump called for vote counting to stop, he falsely tweeted: "ANY VOTE THAT CAME IN AFTER ELECTION DAY WILL NOT BE COUNTED!"

Overall, 22 states and Washington, DC, count all ballots postmarked before or by November 3.

In other words, everything that's happening at the moment is a normal part of the electoral process.