Anxious America left waiting for a President
Tensions running high as thousands take to the streets across US amid Trump campaign’s ‘baseless and reckless’ state legal challenges, writes Nicola Love
THE night before the election, fencing went up around the White House. Adding an extra layer of protection to the President’s official residence, its presence hinted at the mood of the nation over the coming days and fuelled fears that the election would spark civil unrest beyond what the country has already seen over the past few months.
So far, that has not been the case. However, as the vote count spilled over into its third day, the discomfort of the American people has become more palpable.
More than a dozen demonstrations were planned yesterday in cities across the US as a handful of battleground states that were expected to determine the outcome of the election continued to count ballots.
And Donald Trump supporters – some armed with rifles and handguns – descended on election counting centres where mail-in ballots continue to be tallied up.
Dozens gathered outside the Pennsylvania Convention Centre in Philadelphia yesterday afternoon, where votes were still being counted.
Supporters of President Donald Trump in MAGA apparel waved
Trump flags and faced off with supporters of former vice-president Joe Biden, who chanted “count every vote”.
Trump supporters gathered outside a Las Vegas election centre, chanting “stop the steal,” while others in Phoenix gathered to demand election workers keep counting ballots.
Outside the counting centre in Maricopa County, Phoenix, a crowd of Republican supporters, some armed, gathered shouting “count the votes” and “Fox News sucks”, after the rightwing TV network earlier called
Arizona in Mr Biden’s favour.
In Detroit, a chaotic scene erupted outside the vote tally room at the TCF Centre as election officials informed dozens of challengers that they could not re-enter the room due to it being over-capacity.
People gathered outside the ballot counting area pounded on the doors and windows, shouting, “Let us in” and “Stop the count”.
Police had to push back crowds as they argued to be allowed in the votecounting arena.
In Portland, Oregon, which has been a scene of regular protests for months, governor Kate Brown called out the National Guard as demonstrators engaged in what authorities said was widespread violence.
Protesters in Portland were demonstrating about a range of issues, including police brutality and the counting of the vote.
“It’s important to trust the process, and the system that has ensured free and fair elections in this country through the decades, even in times of great crisis,” Ms Brown said in a statement. “We are all in this together.”
In New York, hundreds of people paraded past boarded-up luxury stores on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, and in Chicago, demonstrators marched along a street across the river from Trump Tower.
Similar protests –sometimes about the election, sometimes about racial inequality – took place in at least a halfdozen cities, including Los Angeles, Houston, Pittsburgh, Minneapolis and San Diego.
Two top county officials – one a Democrat, the other a Republican – issued a statement expressing concern about how misinformation had spread about the integrity of the election process.
“Everyone should want all the votes to be counted, whether they were mailed or cast in person,” said the statement signed by Clint Hickman, the Republican chairman of
Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, and Democratic supervisor Steve Gallardo.
“An accurate vote takes time. This is evidence of democracy, not fraud.”
Earlier, the Republican campaign filed a suit in a bid to halt the count in Michigan, demanding the Democratic secretary of state allow in more inspectors.
Michigan attorney general Dana Nessel, a Democrat, insisted both parties and the public had been given access to the tallying, “using a robust system of checks and balances to ensure that all ballots are counted fairly and accurately”.
The secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, said the “stop the count” protesters outside the counting centre in Detroit were a distraction and warned that people would need to “push back against the misinformation that we believe will escalate potentially in the days ahead”.
“As for the folks who showed up in the late hours outside to cause a lot of distraction and make a lot of noise, if they thought they were going to intimidate or stop anyone from doing their job inside the TCF Centre, they don’t know Detroit,” Ms Benson said.
She defended the ballot-counting as “transparent” and said the Trump campaign’s lawsuit against Michigan, alleging that the campaign had “not been provided with meaningful access to numerous counting locations”, was “frivolous”.
Last night a group of former US attorneys who were appointed by Republican presidents criticised President Trump for prematurely declaring victory while votes are still being counted and called his claims of voter fraud “premature, baseless, and reckless”.
“Unfounded allegations of fraud and threats to initiate litigation aimed at stopping the vote count are clearly inappropriate and have the potential to undermine the rule of law as it applies to our electoral process,” the group said yesterday.
In their statement, the former US attorneys called on Trump to let the vote-counting process take its course.
“We hereby call upon the President to patiently and respectfully allow the lawful vote-counting process to continue,” the group said, an apparent quip about Mr Trump’s tweet in which he said: “We hereby claim the State of Michigan” – a state where Mr Biden is the projected winner.
We hereby call upon the President to patiently and respectfully allow the lawful vote-counting process to continue