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Protester outside the Detroit counting center on Friday
Photo: David Goldman / AP
After the election, fear of violence grew in the US.
In front of several counting sites in contested key states, Trump supporters gathered on Thursday and Friday, spurred on by the US President who had called for the counts to be stopped.
Several officials expressed concern.
"My wife and mother are very worried about me," said Joe Gloria, an official in Clark Country, Nevada, the district where Las Vegas is located.
However, he and the other staff would not stop doing their duty and counting the votes.
Katie Hobbs, Secretary of State in Arizona, told CNN that her greatest concern is the safety of her employees.
The partly violent demonstrators would ensure that the counting of the votes would be delayed.
They stopped poll workers from just doing their job.
But she also pointed out that helpers would be protected by security guards.
Openly carried weapons
On Thursday, around a hundred Trump supporters gathered in front of the Maricopa County polling center in Phoenix, several with rifles and pistols.
This is legal in Arizona.
Those responsible erected fences around the center, but the entrance to the building remained open.
Shouts like "Four more years!" Came from the crowd.
Around a hundred Trump supporters also gathered in Atlanta in front of the State Farm Area, where the counts are running.
Police officers watched the scene.
One of the protesters said he was convinced that Trump won the election.
"This is clearly electoral fraud from the larger, democratically dominated cities," he said.
Atlanta is one of them.
"Our democracy is under attack," he continued, his statements were very similar to the messages of Donald Trump.
"We are about to lose America because we are losing a fair election in this country."
In fact, so far there has been no serious evidence of election fraud.
It is quite common in US history that the vote count takes several days.
International election observers from the OSCE also found no violations.
Nevertheless, dozens of Trump supporters also gathered in Detroit and Philadelphia in front of buildings where the vote count takes place.
The protesters chanted slogans like "Stop the Steal" - a reference to Trump's unsubstantiated claim that the election was stolen from him.
Some had red signs with the phrase "Make Election Fair Again" written on them.
The message is closely based on Trump's long-used slogan "Make America great again".
In Philadelphia, police arrested two men on Thursday who were carrying firearms near the convention center without permission.
Biden: "Nobody will take our democracy away from us"
In many places the groups are still manageable and do not cause any direct violence.
Nevertheless, those responsible expressed concern at the repeated, unsubstantiated allegations of election manipulation by Trump and his campaign team.
Many are apparently afraid that the mood in the divided country could change further and that there could be violent protests by supporters or opponents of the president.
Trump presented himself again as a victim of systematic electoral fraud during an appearance in the White House on Thursday evening, without providing any evidence for his claims.
Several US television stations then canceled their live broadcast.
Trump's eldest son heated up the mood and called for a "total war" against the alleged election fraud.
It was time to "clean up and no longer look like a banana republic," he tweeted.
The online service provided the short message with a warning.
Joe Biden, for his part, called for calm.
He wrote on Twitter: "Nobody will take our democracy away from us."
According to the Washington Post, the Secret Service is planning to tighten security for the 77-year-old.
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irb / AFP / AP / dpa