‘Not over!’: Trump supporters take to the streets to cry voter fraud as Biden seals election win

Thousands of Trump supporters, some of them armed, have taken to the streets in several cities across America to protest against Joe Biden's presidential election win.

As tensions flared following four days of intense ballot-counting in key battleground states, defiant Trump fans chanted "this isn't over!" and "stop the steal!" despite Mr Biden on Saturday being declared the 46th president of the US.

Seemingly buoyed by the president's so far baseless claims of mass voter fraud, crowds gathered in Atlanta, Tallahassee, Austin, Bismarck, Boise and Phoenix to insist that the Democrats had "stolen" the election.

In at Atlanta, Georgia - a once Republican stronghold where Mr Biden is ahead but a recount has been called - a crowd of around 1,000 Trump loyalists shouted "lock him up" as president-elect Biden prepared his victory speech in Delaware.

Team Trump remains defiant the election is "far from over" in spite of Mr Biden clinching his home state of Pennsylvania and later Nevada, securing victory and sealing the president's fate as a one-term commander-in-chief.

The president's surrogates have launched a series of legal challenges in battleground states, but are yet to present any evidence of ballot illegality. And the increasing size of Mr Biden's lead has led most legal experts to suggest the president's lawsuits are doomed to fail.

But Mr Trump's supporters - and some local Republican figures - are refusing to accept the outcome of a record-breaking and history-making election described as the most important in living memory.    

Fiery clashes erupted in some cities but there were no reports of any serious violence, although police had to separate rival groups of protesters in Atlanta, a majority-black city and a Democrat stronghold.

Jordan Kelley, a 29-year-old from Murfreesboro, Tennessee, drove three-plus hours to Atlanta to attend the pro-Trump rally.

“There’s election fraud going on here,” said Mr Kelley, claiming that voters in Georgia, a state with a GOP governor and secretary of state, had improperly counted the ballots to put Biden ahead. “Even though I live in Tennessee, I’m an American, and I want to make sure Americans have a voice in the election.”

He planned to make the 10-hour trip to Washington next week to demonstrate on the steps of the Supreme Court, where Trump and his lawyers have vowed to eventually make his case.

Underscoring the hard feelings on both sides of the nation’s deep political divide, anti-Trump protesters in Washington booed, yelled obscenities, shouted “Loser! Loser!” and gave the finger to Trump’s motorcade as the president returned to the White House from a golf outing Saturday.

Two signs posted in front of Mr Trump’s Washington hotel read “Don’t be a sore loser” and “Face Reality.”

For his part, Mr Biden pleaded for unity and reconciliation in a televised address Saturday night, saying it is time for Americans to “put away the harsh rhetoric, lower the temperature” and “stop treating our opponents like enemies.”

“Let this grim era of demonization in America begin to end here and now,” he said.

Contrary to the claims of Trump supporters, there has been no evidence of any serious vote fraud. And some Republican elected officials around the country began to distance themselves from Trump and urge him to accept the outcome gracefully.

The utter rejection of Mr Biden as the legitimate president by Trump and his supporters appears to represent something new in American political history, said Barbara Perry, presidential studies director at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center.

“We typically haven’t had a leader who loses the presidency who then tells his followers, ‘This is false. This has been stolen from us,’” Ms Perry said. “Incumbent presidents have been mad, so mad they didn’t go to the inauguration, but not like this, where they are leading those people to say this is fraudulent.”

A couple of thousand Trump supporters gathered at the Pennsylvania Capitol in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania played a crucial role in Mr Biden’s victory.

“If we don’t stop this today, it’ll all be over,” Bruce Fields, 66, said of news organizations declaring Biden the winner. “Otherwise we can kiss freedom goodbye.”

About two dozen heavily armed men, some wearing camouflage, joined the rally.

At the Arizona Capitol in Phoenix, a crowd swelled to more than 1,000 within hours. Mr Biden won Arizona on his way to victory in the electoral college.

“It’s very suspicious that president Trump, with the red wave we’ve been seeing in Arizona, is struggling,” Kelli Ward, former state senator and chairwoman of the Arizona Republican Party, told boisterous pro-Trump demonstrators. “I want to know if there is any discrepancy with the numbers coming out of the machines.”

More than 1,000 people gathered at the Texas Capitol in Austin, with police keeping Trump and Biden supporters on opposite sides of the street. Several hundred demonstrators turned out in Salem, Oregon, for a “stop the steal” rally.

Even in a place that wasn’t close,  Mr Trump's supporters gathered in droves to express support for him and vent frustration over the outcome of the election. Outside North Dakota’s Capitol in Bismarck, the state’s all-Republican congressional delegation joined chanting, sign-carrying protesters.

A few skirmishes broke out between Trump backers and pro-Biden and Black Lives Matters demonstrators, with one BLM supporter attempting to handcuff himself to a rival protester. The two men began wrestling on the ground.

An officer escorted the Black Lives Matter supporter to a squad car. It was unclear if he had been arrested.

In Lansing, Michigan, about 50 Trump supporters and a smaller group of marchers carrying BLM flags converged on the state Capitol, where they pushed, shoved and shouted at one another in a tense standoff. But within moments of the race being called, a few from both sides broke into prayer, and at least one pair hugged.

Frank Dobbs, 40, of Henderson, Nevada, brought a bullhorn and a Trump 2020 flag that he wrestled with in a stiff wind during a rally outside the Clark County registrar of voters office in North Las Vegas.

“It’s not over until it’s over. There’s still the courts. If ever there’s ever a time to expose widespread fraud, this is the president to do it,” Mr Dobbs said. “The media doesn’t decide who wins the presidency. The legal voters of this country decide.”

With Associated Press