On Thursday, Oregon governor Kate Brown announced the activation of the state's National Guard in response to "widespread violence" in Portland, USA Today reported. Protests were reported across the US post-elections. After President Donald Trump's electoral leads in battleground states slowly slipped under his feet, he has been claiming that the election has been stolen from him. He has moved legally to stop counting in several key states.
"Stop the Steal" was a consistent slogan in many protests. LA Times reported that dozens of angry Trump supporters converged on vote-counting centers in Detroit and Phoenix as the returns went against him in the two key states, while thousands of anti-Trump protesters demanding a complete tally of the ballots in the still-undecided election took to the streets in cities across the US. Trump supporters gathered in Nevada and elections buildings in Arizona (which Biden is leading in).
On the other hand, Biden-supporting "Count Every Vote" protestors gathered in Chicago, New York and Detroit.
As Milan Sime Martinic wrote in THE WEEK, anxiety over what happens if Trump tells his supporters that the election was a hoax has cities like Madison in Wisconsin preparing for uncontrollable acts of god. Washington, San Francisco and New York, all reported boarded-up stores. Blocks and blocks of Washington are behind plywood, and people are being told to stock up on food.
Raising the spectre of a possible election dispute, the Trump campaign announced it has filed lawsuits on Wednesday in Pennsylvania and Michigan, laying the groundwork for contesting the outcome in undecided battleground states that could determine whether President Donald Trump gets another four years in the White House.
Multiple US networks had called Wisconsin and Michigan, both key battleground states, in favour of Biden. Both these states were crucial in the Trump victory in 2016. Other key states like Arizona also seem to be firmly edging towards Biden, narrowing Trump's possible victory path. As things stand, Trump needs to win both Michigan and Pennsylvania to have any chance of winning the presidency; if Michigan is gone, the path is essentially shut out.
The Trump campaign filed suits in both states, demanding better access for campaign observers to locations where ballots are being processed and counted, the campaign said. The campaign also is seeking to intervene in a Pennsylvania case at the Supreme Court that deals with whether ballots received up to three days after the election can be counted. The campaign said it is calling for a temporary halt in the counting in both states until it is given "meaningful" access in numerous locations and allowed to review ballots that already have been opened and processed.