Trump and his Republican allies want to keep counting votes in 2 states where they're behind and stop counting votes in 3 states where they're ahead

• President Donald Trump filed lawsuits on Wednesday in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Michigan to halt the battleground states from counting remaining votes.
• Meanwhile, the president and his Republican allies are insisting that Arizona and Nevada — where Trump is behind Biden and looking for crucial electoral vote pickups — continue counting the votes.
• Trump-supporting protesters chanted "Stop the count!" outside of some ballot-counting centers and "Count that vote!" outside others.

President Donald Trump filed lawsuits on Wednesday in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Michigan to halt the battleground states from counting remaining votes.

Meanwhile, the president and his Republican allies are insisting that Arizona and Nevada — where Trump is behind Biden and looking for crucial electoral vote pickups — continue counting the votes.

Notably, Trump's initial lead in the states where he wants ballot counting to stop has either significantly narrowed or been overcome by Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. On Wednesday afternoon, Biden won Michigan, according to Decision Desk HQ and other major news outlets.

Trump-supporting protesters chanted "Stop the count!" outside a vote counting center in Detroit, Michigan on Wednesday. Meanwhile, other Trump-supporting protesters shouted "Count that vote!" outside a ballot-tallying facility in Maricopa County, Arizona.

In Michigan and Pennsylvania, the Trump campaign is calling for "meaningful" access to the ballot-counting process, claiming that it doesn't have sufficient means to oversee ballot tallying and look over ballots that have been counted.

The delayed vote counts in so many states is in part a result of the surge in mail-in voting amid the pandemic. But in several states, including Pennsylvania, GOP-controlled state legislatures have refused to pass or blocked legislation that would've allowed state election officials to begin processing the mail-in and early ballots before Election Day to speed up the process.

Several reporters have pointed out the inconsistency in the GOP message on vote-counting.

—Dan Zak (@MrDanZak) November 5, 2020

—Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) November 5, 2020

—The Recount (@therecount) November 5, 2020

—Philip Bump (@pbump) November 5, 2020