After Donald Trump’s upset victory last week made him the next president of the United States, thousands of protesters marched in Portland’s streets to proclaim the businessman was “not my president.”
But, according to KGW, state election records indicate that at least half of those arrested didn’t register to vote or turn in a ballot in Oregon.
The television station cross-checked a list of 112 people arrested by Portland police and determined that 34 of those arrested did not return a ballot and another 35 were not registered to vote in the state. The voting records for another 17 protesters had yet to be confirmed, according to KGW.
One protester, though she was registered to vote in Oregon, told the station that she had voted in Washington state after recently moving across state lines. Opponent Hillary Clinton won Oregon’s seven electoral votes.
Most of those who were arrested in connection to the demonstrations had their charges dropped while police are completing paperwork, and will receive traffic citations instead, according to a statement from the Portland Police Bureau and the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office. But two teenagers, who were arrested after a man was shot and hurt early Saturday morning, are being charged with attempted murder or aiding and abetting it, OregonLive reported.
Protests have rocked Portland daily since Trump’s election, and demonstrations on Thursday and Friday night were marked by violence, with some smashing cars and windows and others throwing bottles at police. Police responded with rubber bullets and tear gas to break up the crowds, the Associated Press reported.
Even those too young to vote staged protests in the days following the election: Several hundred high school students left local high school campuses to protest downtown Monday, though the group remained peaceful.
Portland Mayor Charlie Hales had asked residents Saturday to refrain from demonstrating, citing the behavior of “people who simply want to fight with police,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
Portland’s protesters are not the only ones to demonstrate publicly against the president elect. Similar protests have broken out across the country, from California to New York, condemning Trump’s rhetoric against women and minorities and voicing their opposition to the election results.