There’s the swinging-door chad. The hanging chad. The ever-elusive tri chad. And don’t forgot those tricky dimpled, bulging and pregnant chads.

When a presidential election has come down to classifying different types of chads — the bits of paper punched out of the Palm Beach County ballots — you can be sure it’s far from over.

Electoral College protesters are demanding Republican candidate George W. Bush step down, since Democrat Al Gore appears to be winning the popular vote.

On the other side, Bush supporters are demanding Gore step down, since Bush seemed to be ahead in Florida in the first few counts, though his lead is narrowing.

There’s no need for anyone to concede this election. It’s a virtual tie in both the popular vote and the race for 270 votes in the Electoral College. Though it’s almost a week after Election Day, the presidency is still up for grabs.

America is not in a state of national emergency. We have a president — Bill Clinton. He won’t leave office until Jan. 20, 2001. The Electoral College doesn’t even meet until Dec. 18. A winner in the presidential election does not need to be decided ASAP.

The uncertainty over the election is causing the stock market to dip, but it will go up again once we sort through this thing. And anyway, whom the president nominates for chairman of the Federal Reserve will affect our finances more than a blip in a generally good economy.

The point of a democracy is to have our votes count, not to urge somebody to resign before all the votes are even tallied. If we need to go through each Florida vote — chad by chad — until we’re certain of the winner, then so be it.

It’s better to take our time to figure out who was actually elected to the highest office in America than to rush to judgment just because we’re impatient.

Editorial Board: Carrie Tett, Greg Jerrett, Katie Goldsmith, Amie Van Overmeer, Andrea Hauser and Jocelyn Marcus