Pennsylvania and Wisconsin governors attack Trump after he baselessly claimed victory and suggested that election officials should stop counting votes

• Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, both Democrats, criticized President Donald Trump after he prematurely claimed victory in the 2020 presidential race.
• Trump early Wednesday claimed he won the election and called the counting of ballots after Election Day a "major fraud on our nation," even though it's a normal part of the election process.
• Elections officials across the US have warned that the counting of ballots would extend past Election Day, as states work to count a large number of absentee and mail-in ballots due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers early Wednesday condemned President Donald Trump after he baselessly claimed victory in the 2020 presidential election and incorrectly suggested the continued counting of ballots after Election Day was "fraud."

"We were getting ready to win this election," Trump said at about 2:30 a.m. ET at the White House, despite the fact that no clear winner has yet been announced. "Frankly, we did win this election."

The president also suggested he wanted the counting of ballots to stop, claiming their continued counting was part of "a major fraud on our nation."

"We want law to be used in a proper manner," he said. "So we'll be going to the US Supreme Court. We want all voting to stop."

Polls closed in every state on Tuesday night, so no one is still voting. Election officials are simply still counting all of the ballots.

"We still have over 1 million mail ballots to count in Pennsylvania," Wolf said in a tweet just before 3 a.m. "I promised Pennsylvanians that we would count every vote and that's what we're going to do."

The Pennsylvania governor continued: "Let's be clear: This is a partisan attack on Pennsylvania's elections, our votes, and democracy," adding "our counties are working tirelessly to process votes as quickly AND as accurately as possible."

The race in Pennsylvania has not yet been called, and the key battleground state isn't expecting to be finished counting absentee ballots until Friday at the earliest as officials only began counting absentee ballots on Tuesday morning.

Wolf emphasized Wednesday the state would count "every vote."

In Wisconsin, where the presidential race has likewise not yet been called, Gov. Tony Evers similarly emphasized the efforts to count ballots in his state were ongoing, despite the president's comments.

"An election doesn't end when an elected official says they won—it ends when every vote has been counted," Evers said in a tweet just before 4 a.m. on Monday.

"Our clerks and election workers are continuing to do their important work after millions of Wisconsinites cast their ballots to make their voices heard," the Democratic governor said.

Even in California, which Insider and Decision Desk HQ project Biden has won, Gov. Gavin Newsom likewise said in a tweet that "every vote will be counted."

As Business Insider previously reported, the president's premature claims of victory were unsurprising given his past comments about mail-in voting and vote-counting. A recent Axios report suggested Trump was planning to declare victory on election night if he was ahead, and he's previously refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power.

Even in election years that aren't upended by pandemics, it takes days or weeks to ensure all of the votes are counted. States are usually called for candidates based on mathematical projections rather than a direct tally.