US election 2020: Chaos outside voting centres mounts

The chaos outside vote counting stations across America is mounting, with workers now in hiding over threats and armed men arrested.

Natalie Brown

@natalieisbrown

3 min read

November 7, 2020 - 6:34PM

A Detroit policeman stands between Trump supporters and counter protesters outside the TCF election centre. Picture: John Moore/Getty Images/AFP

As America anxiously awaits an election result – with signs pointing to Donald Trump being ousted from the White House – the chaos surrounding vote counting centres in the states yet to declare a winner is mounting.

Two men – armed with loaded handguns – have been arrested on their way to a convention centre in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, where an ongoing vote count could decide the election.

Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said that Joshua Macias, 42, and Antonio LaMotta, 61, had travelled from Virginia into the area, and did not have permits to carry the weapons.

The pair were stopped a block away from their car – adorned with an American flag and a window sticker for conspiracy theorists QAnon – and arrested, after the FBI relayed a tip about their plans to Philadelphia police.

Protests in America’s battleground states are escalating as the nation awaits an election result. Picture: Courtney Pedroza/Getty Images/AFP

Supporters of US President Donald Trump pray in front of the Maricopa County Election Department while votes are being counted in Phoenix, Arizona. Picture: Olivier Touron/AFP

The city’s District Attorney Larry Krasner said there were no indications that anyone else was involved or that the men are members of an extremist group.

Election officials in several states have expressed their concern over the safety of their staff as angry gatherings and threats directed toward the centres, sparked by the US President’s baseless claims of widespread voter fraud, increases.

The “Count every vote” and “Stop the steal” demonstrations have gradually unfolded since election night, when Mr Trump first claimed “major fraud” was occurring across the nation.

“We want all voting to stop. We don’t want them to find any ballots at four o’clock in the morning and add them to the list. OK? It’s a very sad moment. To me this is a very sad moment and we will win this,” he said from the White House.

As unrest began to brew, the President gave another speech, this time claiming that the Democrats were trying “to steal the election from us”.

“We were winning in all the key locations by a lot, actually, and then our numbers started miraculously getting whittled away, in secrecy,” he said.

Someone's going to get killed over this nonsense, and it sometimes seems like that's the point. https://t.co/IUcoQW4ei0
— Andrew Fleischman (@ASFleischman) November 7, 2020

Dear members of the public: Please stop making harassing & threatening calls to my staff. They are kind, hardworking public servants just doing their job. Asking them to shove sharpies in uncomfortable places is never appropriate & is a sad commentary on the state of our nation.
— Dana Nessel (@dananessel) November 5, 2020

“I can tell you that my wife and my mother are very concerned for me,” Joe Gloria, a registrar in Clark County, Nevada, told The Associated Press.

While he said staff were bolstering security and tracking vehicles coming and going from the ballot counting locations, they would not be stopped from “doing what our duty is and counting ballots”.

According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, a shopping centre that borders Philadelphia’s convention centre was also evacuated, after security at the centre received calls from an individual that a bomb was going to go off.

In Georgia, a traditionally red state that’s set to flip blue for Joe Biden, Fulton County Election Director Rick Barron said one of his workers “is currently in hiding”, after he was falsely accused of throwing out a ballot.

Mr Barron said the man has had to leave his house to stay with friends, and is afraid to drive his car because personal information, including his number plate, were released.

An anti-Trump protester (R), argues with a Trump supporter in Detroit. Picture: John Moore/Getty Images/AFP

Pro-Trump supporters bang on the glass and chant slogans outside the room where absentee ballots were being counted at Detroit’s TCF Centre. Picture: Jeff Kowalsky/AFP

Trump supporters protest in front of the Maricopa County Election Department in Arizona. Picture: Olivier Touron/AFP

“Dear members of the public: Please stop making harassing & threatening calls to my staff,” Michigan Attorney-General Dana Nessel wrote in a plea on Twitter.

“They are kind, hardworking public servants just doing their job. Asking them to shove sharpies in uncomfortable places is never appropriate & is a sad commentary on the state of our nation.”

Trump supporters in the Democratic stronghold city of Detroit, Michigan, attempted to barge into an election office; while aggressive pro-Trump crowds also gathered, once again, outside voting offices in Arizona.

In a statement, two of Maricopa County’s (which encompasses the city of Phoenix) top officials – one a Democrat and the other a Republican – expressed concern about how misinformation about the integrity of the election process was being spread.

“Everyone should want all the votes to be counted, whether they were mailed or cast in person,” the statement, signed by Republican chair of the Maricopa County board of supervisors, Clint Hickman, and Democratic supervisor, Steve Gallardo, said.

“An accurate vote takes time … This is evidence of democracy, not fraud.”