The 2020 election was always going to be messy and in many ways what's happening was expected

• The 2020 election was always expected to be especially messy due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the massive number of mail-in ballots.
• Election officials in key battleground states warned for weeks that they were unlikely to have counted enough votes to declare a winner by November 3. 
• And despite Trump's claims to the contrary, it's a normal part of the electoral process for ballots to continue to be counted after Election Day.
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For months, election experts and journalists warned Americans that it was unlikely there would be a clear winner on election night. But almost as soon as polls began to close on Tuesday, it was evident those words of caution had not taken hold with many voters. 

The anxiety across the nation was palpable on election night, as people on social media jumped from one conclusion to another about the result. It did not help matters that President Donald Trump continued to push disinformation about the process, falsely claiming victory as votes were still being counted and baselessly asserting that the election was being stolen. 

Final election results are never available on election night. Even when news outlets were able to use available results to declare a winner on Election Day in past elections, full results were still not in. But the convoluted array of circumstances surrounding 2020 essentially ensured that a winner would not be projected on election night, and voters should've braced for this. 

An unprecedented number of Americans — roughly 65 million — voted by mail in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It takes longer to process and count mail-in ballots than in-person ballots, and laws vary from state to state in terms of which ballots are counted and reported first.

The huge number of mail-in ballots also led election experts to expect an increase in provisional ballots, which are provided to voters when their registration cannot be immediately verified at the polls.

Provisional ballots, which like mail-in ballots are time-consuming to process and count, are also given to voters who requested an absentee ballot but ultimately decided to go to the polls and vote in person. 

Twenty-two states and Washington, DC, count all ballots postmarked before or by November 3. And most states allow absentee ballots, which include those from voters overseas and in the military, to arrive after Election Day and be counted.

Prior to November 3, election officials in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania repeatedly warned that results were likely to be delayed, possibly even by days. That scenario has played out, with results still up in the air in all three battleground states as of noon on Wednesday. The three battleground states were crucial to Trump's 2016 victory, providing him with 46 electoral votes altogether.

The 2020 election is also hinging on these states, as neither Trump nor former Vice President Joe Biden have crossed the electoral college threshold necessary for victory (270 electoral votes). 

In short, as hard as it is, the best option for voters is to be patient as election officials continue to count votes. And regardless of what Trump says, counting ballots is not equivalent to stealing an election. 

Democracy is messy. Everything that's happening was expected and is a normal part of the process. Legal challenges expected from the Trump campaign could further complicate what happens next, so voters should buckle-up.