A rightly-frustrated President Trump said it best, in the wee hours of this morning: “We were winning everything, and all of a sudden it just stopped.”

While Trump wasn’t “winning everything,” there was a definite feel developing, as Yogi Berra famously said, of déjà vu all over again. As was the case in 2016, as the early results came in, the Democrat nominee began building an Electoral College lead. As the evening wore on, the momentum shifted to Trump, as he picked up Florida, Ohio, and Texas. Then, as Trump said, it “all of a sudden just stopped.”

It was a deafening thud, as election desk anchors and political pundits began to tread water, hoping the “results-reporting machine” would fire up again and begin spitting out the latest results. That didn’t happen.

Trump took to Twitter, with several of his tweets being “shockingly” flagged by Jack Dorsey’s Gestapo Twitter police.

“We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election. We will never let them do it. Votes cannot be cast after the Polls are closed!”

I’m not sure votes were being cast after any polls closed — at least not the way Trump suggested — but I do know that the full stop on reporting results was unsettling, to say the least. And here’s the thing. Did the sudden stop worry Democrats? Pardon my language, but hell no. They loved every minute of it. “Almost” as if it were planned, all along.

We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election. We will never let them do it. Votes cannot be cast after the Polls are closed!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 4, 2020

And later this morning:

“Last night I was leading, often solidly, in many key States, in almost all instances Democrat run & controlled. Then, one by one, they started to magically disappear as surprise ballots dumps were counted. VERY STRANGE, and the “pollsters” got it completely & historically wrong.”

Again, déjà vu all over again.

Last night I was leading, often solidly, in many key States, in almost all instances Democrat run & controlled. Then, one by one, they started to magically disappear as surprise ballot dumps were counted. VERY STRANGE, and the “pollsters” got it completely & historically wrong!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 4, 2020

To Trump’s point, check out our earlier article titled The Polls Were Absolute Garbage Again, and We’ve Got the Receipts.

The flag on this post was ridiculous; the president of the United States gets called onto Dorsey’s carpet simply for asking “What is this all about?”???

WHAT IS THIS ALL ABOUT? https://t.co/6487pYLZnL

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 4, 2020

Trump also retweeted this tweet from political consultant Matt Mackowiak, questioning updated results in Michigan.

An update gives Biden 100% of new votes — 128k+ pic.twitter.com/SPUrTf8gXN

— Matt Mackowiak (@MattMackowiak) November 4, 2020

Check out my RedState colleague Brandon Morse’s article titled Very Odd: Michigan Found Over 100,000 Ballots and Every Single One Has Joe Biden’s Name on It for details on the above development.

Look, I’m not a statistician and I’m not among the “experts” who profess great knowledge of the “science” of polling analysis, but I do know that in 2020 America, this ain’t no way to run an election. Pennsylvania? C’mon. Still 1.4 million votes out there? Why it’s “almost” as if the Keystone State wanted to get the lay of the land before getting down to the business of “counting” the votes that will determine whether Trump or Biden ultimately picks up its 20 electoral votes.

As reported by CBS News, Pennsylvania’s Democrat Gov. Tom Wolf said this morning the state might not know its full election results on Wednesday:

“The most important thing is that we have accurate results, even if that takes a little bit longer than we’re used to.”

Uh-huh, governor.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf says the state might not know its full election results on Wednesday: “The most important thing is that we have accurate results, even if that takes a little bit longer than we’re used to” https://t.co/fxHKy8hSEp pic.twitter.com/Er0OguqjNs

— CBS News (@CBSNews) November 4, 2020

And a broken water pipe at the ballot processing site at State Farm arena caused a delay in Fulton County’s — Atlanta’s — ability to process thousands of absentee-by-mail votes Tuesday night?

While no ballots were damaged, the pipe burst has delayed the absentee-by-mail processing operation by four hours.

“Elections board member Mark Wingate said he believes they won’t have results until Friday,” according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Counting of the absentee votes has ceased for the night and will resume on Wednesday after the election department sent ballot counters home. Fulton County is the most populated county in Georgia.

Okay.

A broken pipe is influencing our election results in Georgia’s largest county, Fulton County https://t.co/2JWbpbL6Ln

— spooky patback (@loserpat) November 4, 2020

I’m not a tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracy theorist — not even close. But, c’mon. Toss in Wisconsin and Michigan, and 2020 makes 2000 and Florida’s “hanging chads” look like a walk in Election Results Heaven park.

In my mind, voting is a privilege, not a right. If you’re too lazy to head to the polls and vote? Then don’t vote. Tens of millions of millions of mail-in ballots in 2020 America is ridiculous. I’m not suggesting that those who are unable to go out and vote should be denied, but what is happening as we speak is a mess — and a national disgrace. While we’re at it, if you can’t figure out how to secure a picture ID — when you need one to cash a check, buy alcohol, or receive cash back at the grocery store? That’s on you.

So the lawsuits will soon begin. As even left-“leaning” Politico observed:

The U.S. lags behind most other countries in this regard, said David Carroll, director of the Democracy Program for the Carter Center, which has monitored foreign elections since 1989 — even if many reasons exist to have overall confidence in the American electoral process.

“The United States has many areas where we don’t meet core international standards,” he said.

Almost every other democracy, he said, has uniform, nationwide election procedures; a central, independent election commission to oversee them and conduct investigations; a single, national election system; and an unvarying system for resolving disputes. “Whereas in the United States, there [are] 50 different election processes, 50 different sets of state laws,” Carroll said.

Also uncommon elsewhere: The U.S. places large portions of its electoral process under the control of elected state and local politicians, raising the potential for partisan interference.

The truth is that two decades after the Florida 2000 election debacle created a rift in the country, and four years after Russian interference in the 2016 election profoundly deepened that divide, the U.S. lacks satisfactory, uniform mechanisms for resolving questions about elections and verifying results.

A country that has suffered mightily throughout this impossible year of 2020 is about to suffer even more as doubts, charges of fraud, and distrust grow beyond where all of it already was. This was not only no way to run an election, folks; it’s no way to run a country.

So where do we now stand? With both Trump and Biden claiming they have a path to victory — both do — Fox News Election Desk director Arnon Mishkin told “Fox & Friends” this morning that he believes “we could see a couple of states decided today.”

Mishkin said he believes Nevada is “very close” to being called. “They say they are going to be counting more vote starting at 9 a.m. local time, which is roughly noon in the east,” he explained, adding, “I think that Wisconsin is also going to be getting more vote reported today.” He also believes Georgia, “particularly the suburban counties around Atlanta, will be getting additional vote reported today.”

So there we have it. Has it struck you, as Democrats have warned and whined about Republican voter fraud, cheating, etc., that rules they themselves change or create always seem to be the proverbial fly in the ointment that leads to places exactly like where we now find ourselves? Me, too. This ain’t no way to run an election, America — and it is frustrating as hell.

Check out our latest articles on the ongoing fiasco:

I Stayed Up to Track the Election Returns So You Wouldn’t Have to — Here’s My Report

They Never Should Have Stopped Counting Votes

Video Suggests They’re Invalidating Trump Votes in Arizona Through Very Simple Means