Police in Portland declared riots, arrested 11 people and seized fireworks, hammers and a rifle, as Oregon Governor Kate Brown activated the National Guard in response to protests on the night after voting in the US presidential election.
In New York, police said they had made about 50 arrests in protests that spread in the city late on Wednesday.
Demonstrations, mostly small and peaceful, were held in cities across the United States by supporters of Democratic nominee Joe Biden. President Donald Trump has claimed victory and called for a halt to the counting of ballots in states that will determine the outcome of Tuesday's election. Biden has said he believes he is on course to win once the votes are counted.
A wide range of demonstrators gathered on Wednesday night in Portland, Ore., Philadelphia, Chicago and New York to show support for all votes to be counted, Black Lives Matter and other causes. pic.twitter.com/vArauma5Lw
— The New York Times (@nytimes) November 5, 2020
Four arrests were made in Denver as protesters clashed with police, the Denver Police Department said. Arrests were also made during demonstrations in Minneapolis after protesters blocked traffic, local police there said.
Activists also staged rallies in Atlanta, Detroit and Oakland demanding that vote counts proceed unimpeded.
Local partners of Protect the Results - a coalition of more than 165 grassroots organizations, advocacy groups and labour unions - have organized more than 100 events planned across the country between Wednesday and Saturday.
In Arizona, a crowd of Donald Trump supporters, some armed with rifles and handguns, gathered outside an election centre on Wednesday night after unsubstantiated rumours that votes for the Republican president were deliberately not being counted.
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Chanting "Stop the steal!," and "Count my vote," the mostly unmasked protesters stood in front of the Maricopa County Elections Department in Phoenix, as Biden held a razor thin lead in the critical battleground state. Some news outlets have called Arizona for Biden, but Trump's campaign says it is still in play.
Earlier on Wednesday, about 100 people gathered for an interfaith event before a planned march through downtown Detroit, in the battleground state of Michigan, to demand a full vote count and a peaceful transition of power.
The United States had seen months of protests following the death in May of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
Portland has seen months of demonstrations since Floyd's death, particularly in the city's downtown area, with protests occasionally turning into clashes between demonstrators and police as well as between right- and left-wing groups.