Hannah Knowles
Phoenix - Dozens of protesters - many with pro-Trump flags and signs - gathered Wednesday night outside the ballot-counting centre in Arizona's biggest county, which has been livestreaming its process.
They chanted "let us in!" and "count the votes" and "we love Trump" and questioned the integrity of the election system.
A smaller group of people, upset over claims emphatically denied by election officials that Republican ballots completed with markers had been rejected, had gathered at the Maricopa County tabulation and election centre not long before, at one point entering the building. Officials eventually got them back outside.
They left and returned just before 8pm in much greater numbers, prompting those inside the centre to close the doors.
"This is about a fair and honest election," a man at the centre of the crowd declared, later saying people would be back every day.
"We're not going to break in. We just want to watch you count the ballots," someone shouted at one point.
Former vice president Joe Biden led President Donald Trump by about 80,000 votes in Arizona at 11:30 p.m. Eastern time, according to The Washington Post's election tracker, with about 85% of ballots having been tallied.
The Trump campaign has filed or said it intends to begin legal challenges to election processes in several states, but it has not mentioned Arizona among them.
On Wednesday afternoon in Detroit, protesters demonstrated loudly outside a room where ballots were being tallied, chanting "Stop the count!" They recited the Pledge of Allegiance and said a prayer. Staff members at the site told them that they could not enter, citing public health reasons, which seemed to embolden the group.
In Minneapolis, several hundred marchers blocked traffic on Interstate 94 - a major artery in the city - in protest of Donald Trump's presidency but also as a warning that a President Joe Biden might not deliver the "change" they are looking for.
Earlier in the day in New York City, a large march had taken over part of Fifth Avenue. Anti-Trump protests had converged in Washington Square Park. From there, activists continued on in different directions. New York police tweeted that they arrested more than 20 people "who attempted to hijack a peaceful protest by lighting fires, throwing garbage and eggs in Manhattan."