Earlier this morning, at around 2:30 a.m. on the east coast, Donald Trump declared what many believed to be a premature victory over Joe Biden.

Towards the end of his speech, he essentially repudiated any votes that would come in over the next few days saying:

"... we'll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court. We want all voting to stop. We don't want them to find any ballots at 4 o'clock in the morning and add them to the list. OK? It's a very sad moment...We will win this and as far as I'm concerned we already have won it."

Trump is not directly calling out mail-in ballots as fraudulent but has said that wide-spread mail-in ballots will lead to voter fraud, an idea he repeated in his public statement, saying "This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country."

However, there is little or no evidence that the use of mail-in ballots increases voter or election fraud or election irregularities.

While Trump believes the election is in-hand, the fact is that there are still millions of votes that have not been counted. The votes are legitimate and many of them in crucial states like Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Georgia, and Pennsylvania are mail-in ballots as a result of the pandemic.

Bernie Sanders predicted what he believed could happen during this election and it reads eerily similar to what Trump himself spelled out. If Biden ends up winning enough states due to mail-in votes and Trump contests the Electoral vote, we could be in unprecedented waters.

As Trump said in his speech this morning, "Our goal now is to ensure the integrity for the good of the nation." And what's clear is that integrity in terms of American democracy is about ensuring that all votes cast are calculated before a winner is declared.