ration. like. power of pick tack on a. sheeting can happen like you've never seen this is that dream. of polls open in the us presidential election with donald trump again questioning the legitimacy of postal voting. take back our caucus. its rival joe biden closed his campaign in the swing state of pennsylvania promising at the beginning of a new day. and i'm glad this is al jazeera live from the hall also coming up 4 people were killed as gunmen opened fire in the austrian capital of vienna the government is calling

it a terrorist attack. president alassane ouattara is declared the winner of ivory coast general election but the opposition is refusing to accept the result. so that it's just gone past 11 g.m.t. here in doha that is 6 am on the east coast of the united states where the long race to decide the country's next president is entering its final stage polls have just opened in several states these are live pictures from charlottesville in virginia very early days at this point not too many people about the voters will decide whether to hand donald trump a 2nd term or elect the former vice president joe biden to the white house already more than 98000000 people have cast ballots and early voting that's levels that have never been seen before in a us. and that action. while his own team on the ground for this game but his own

dough is monitoring developments from new york christensen is in philadelphia pennsylvania one of the big battleground states and jamal the show is in washington in delaware about biden's home state and from washington d.c. we go to alan fischer and we'll get the latest from him in just a moment but 1st let's just take a look at how the loss of campaigning have unfolded a white house correspondent can be how it begins our coverage. us president donald trump wrapped up his reelection campaign still behind in the national polls but convinced he'll pull off a victory and i think we're going to have a tremendous victory truck rally in 4 different battleground states but made his last rally in michigan as he did in 2016 with an 11th hour pitch to voters but if biden harrisson the radical left gain power they will collapse our economy and

send our nation into a very steep depression terms rival former vice president joe biden focused on the northeastern state of pennsylvania calling in celebrity artists like lady gaga to wrap up the final night and in. pennsylvania is the same state where biden's campaign started and also where he was born just 5 stair never take back our democracy where you'd do this where you'd be better than what we've heard. if you're being who you are best your vantage states of america as the candidates presented their closing arguments the number of americans who have voted prior to election day has set new records nearly 100000000 people have cast their ballots in early voting. most polls show early mail in voting favors biden but trump believes his supporters are waiting until tuesday to cast in person votes but in

the final hours of the campaign both candidates signaled they may not accept the results on election day sheeting can happen like you've never seen this is their dream and they are they are known for trouble even called a recent supreme court decision allowing an extension to count votes in pennsylvania as dangerous twitter flagged the tweet as potentially misleading with an immediate result on election day in doubt both candidates are preparing potential legal challenges to the results under no scenario while donald trump declared a victory a victor on election night casting widespread uncertainty over poll results now appears to be a tactic employed by both campaigns you know we've already seen challenges to extended deadlines for allowing

a mail in ballots that have been postmarked by election day but that arrive a few days later they have been challenges to adjustments in the law as american voters are anxious hoarding food. and boarding up businesses from new york to los angeles joe biden will be in pennsylvania on election day donald trump will be watching the returns come in from the white house were to add additional fences have been erected around the perimeter in anticipation of civil unrest can really help at al-jazeera the white house let us get to our correspondents 1st up on official joins us live from washington d.c. and island so here we are one of the most consequential and tumultuous elections in american history perhaps the stage is set. welcome to election day in america 2020 people have been waiting for a very long time for this and both sides believe this is the most important

election that they will face in their lifetime on one side you have the democrats seeing that america simply can't afford 4 more years of donald trump you see he has mismanaged the economy he has mismanaged his handling of the corporate violence he has wrecked the vision throughout the country he has promoted racists and it's time for him to go as for the republicans they say that donald trump has been the most consequential president in their lifetime he has done a great deal for ordinary working people across america he has helped raise the employment status of blacks hispanics and various other minorities as well and he deserves another 4 years given that his initial project has been derailed by the covert virus which they say was sent here by china so that sets the table for the next 1218 hours or so will we get a result on tuesday night that is unlikely there are many states such as

pennsylvania say that they will continue to absentee ballots no there's been a move by the republicans to have the voting stopped after the polls close but of course what that tends to overlook is that many people who are serving in the military overseas will use their mail in ballots so the argument that the democrats are using in the last few hours is that if you do that then you will deprive people who are defending the country from actually having a say in who runs the country this has been a contentious election nothing much is going to change in the next few days it's going to be a contentious post-election as well the current incumbent of course of the building behind you is donald trump he's been high speed campaigning in the last few days where will he be following events and how much anxiety will there be in his camp given the state of the polls. well you've got to give donald trump credit here is

a man in his seventy's who was hospitalized because of covert he was struggling to breathe on the friday that he was airlifted from the white house and taken to the hospital he was released 3 days later and hit the campaign trail not long after that and in the last few days he's been doing for 5 rallies a day in front of thousands and thousands of people so all election day he will leave the white house he wore go to arlington he will speak to republican party workers there thanking them for their efforts and then he will head back to the white house but before he does all that he'll be appearing on his favorite cable channel on one of his favorite shows and he'll be talking about the election and newdow repeating many of the themes that he has hammered away over the last few weeks what is interesting is that the polls this time around see that donald trump is not going to win if you speak to anyone in the truck campaign who say that was exactly the same 4 years ago none of the polls and i remember them none of the

paul's give donald trump a chance to win but the pauls have been static this time they have been consistent since the middle of summer donald trump calls them fake paul's for all that does is set the table for what i see could be a contentious post-election and he is convinced that he will get another 4 years in the building behind me here and dawn is breaking across washington d.c. we need to see how the day unfolds all of the time being thanks very much let's cross now to demolish who's live for us outside a polling station in wilmington in delaware which is biden's home state of course. all odds as we've just been hearing favoring the former vice president clearly he won't be taking anything for granted. no it seems that the democrats have learned their lesson from last time around with the vice presidential candidates coming to harvest urging voters to go out and vote as if

their life depended on it showing that in the final stretch the final hours just before polling open that there was this desperate urge by the democrats to try and garner as much support as possible and to tell all their supporters not to take anything for granted that just because the polls are favoring them it doesn't necessarily mean as we heard there from them that that's will translate into a victory and it was the responsibility of everybody to get out there the message has been consistent with what biden as well has been pushing out which was that their campaign was a campaign to do better for america and their campaign was to save american democracy from 4 years of it's a roach and under president donald trump and those kind of messaging are ones that really are rallying people around that it's not just a question of choosing who the next president is but actually the core of the votes is america's democracy and its poor ism. thanks very much indeed let's cross over

now to philadelphia in pennsylvania kristen sumi is standing by for us that and kristen this is very much one of the big battleground states and it may be some time before we get a result. absolutely right this is considered the tipping point the state that could deliver the electoral votes that either count candidate need to get over the top 20 electoral votes up for grabs here and polls open at the top of the hour you can see behind me election workers starting to get ready to welcome voters around the corner a few have already lined up to cast their ballots this state has seen more visits from the candidates than any other joe biden was in pittsburgh last night he held a drive in rally with the pop star lady. he is trying to rally. people to the polls he talked about unifying the country he said to the voters there that you represent the backbone of the country working families making an appeal to some of

the same voters who helped put donald trump over the top here back in 2016 biden will be back in philadelphia today he needs to really mobilize urban voters in particular minority voters who have increased in population percentage since the last election that's something that could work in joe biden's favor and then he'll wrap up the day in pennsylvania anyway in scranton which is his hometown where he grew up president for his part has been stoking the flames we've already heard a bit about that he was in just outside of scranton yesterday speaking to voters there he warned that he was also appealing to those working class voters that helped put him over the top the 1st time around he's also been trying to expand that base with ads targeted at the minority community here in the state in

suburban women voters as well he's been reaching out to but that working class not college educated white man is the backbone of his support and that's a strong group here in pennsylvania he also warned president that there could be violence in the streets because the election results are not expected to come in right away here this is in downtown philadelphia where i am i'm seeing some boarded up windows and storefronts there's concern about that and president trump has really been stoking. the question of the concerns about law and order and the validity of the election results here in pennsylvania state law prevents election workers from counting the ballots until election day itself and they are. see so many mail in votes this year 300000 mail in votes i'm sorry 3000000 mailing votes requested that's way more than. any

time in the past because of changes in the law that allow that to happen this year anyone can vote by mail but again the counting doesn't start until today so the results are expected to take a few days and the early results are expected to be more the person bodies' and is expected to favor donald trump a bit more where democrats have taken out more of the mail in ballots so we could see this race be very close change evolve over the coming days and things could be very uncertain in fact the governor is warning people to stay calm and to have faith and just be patient philadelphia a key study perhaps the key which everything pivots we shall see kristen thanks very much indeed. oh well polls have just opened into jimmy here in new jersey and in new york it's on the life or south side the polling station there. like everywhere it's been a challenging year across the united states not least didn't you you'll can see what's the sense now election day is upon us and the door has broken from the day

that the american people decide on. the i would say it's a nervous quite frankly this is a solidly blue state new york so it's no secret that this state will most likely go for joe biden there's no mystery to that but i think there is particularly here in new york and in new york city a lot of nervousness about this election why because they remember back to 4 years ago it was 4 years ago election day that hillary clinton had a big planned a victory party set up here in new york with thousands of people at a huge convention center here in the city she was 6 back did to win that election to have a huge party here in new york and we all remember what happened then everyone left many of them in tears so i think a lot of democrats here in new york are particularly nervous about this selection

hoping in their view that this doesn't turn into another situation like 20164 years ago. but we'll have to certainly see now the sun is starting to come out here in new york where at one of the main polling stations here in brooklyn and i got to say there's only about 12 people that were in line when the polls opened about 15 minutes ago excuse me you ask yourself why probably because more than 1100000 new yorkers people in new york city have already voted in early voting and here in the state of new york about 2 and a half 1000000 people have already voted in early voting so while we do expect to see lines this morning progress is that day progresses here in new york and elsewhere we might not see the same lines that we've seen on same day voting in previous years because so many people after all ready for. but it gave thanks a lot gabriel is on to new york early voting perhaps key in all of this as we hear

yet in fact a record 98000000 americans have already voted across the country and many of them have done it all by mail before election day that's largely due to some reluctance to vote in person during the pandemic but across the u.s. there is no single uniform procedure for processing in tubby elating those votes rob reynolds explains. there's been a tremendous surge in mail in and absentee ballots cast in this election we're going to see tens of millions of more americans vote by mail than have in any other former presidential or any election really this despite president donald trump's repeated false claims that mail in voting is rife with fraud no there's there's no evidence of widespread fraud the process catch is that the process is to bahrain to catch these sorts of issues percentage is about 0006 percent of all ballots cast 9 states plus the district of columbia send ballots automatically to all

active registered voters in the rest of voters may request absentee ballots despite fears that trump appointed postal officials were engineering a mail service slow down observers say delivery time has not so far been an issue we've actually been hearing good stories about very quick delivery when will all these ballots be counted well it depends on the state all across the spectrum of the united states you have a variation in the rules of which the voters need to abide by the way in which ballots are counted be be it the laws and policies and procedures or the type of equipment that they're using most states begin processing and preparing mail in ballots for tabulation well before november 3rd that means they'll get results quickly it's just a handful of states that don't allow that crowd. the same to occur untel election day or after but that handful includes the crucial swing states of wisconsin and

pennsylvania ballot counting there could delay knowing who won if we're down to the wire and it's all contingent upon a couple of states we may not know the projected outcome and tell long after election day a couple of days maybe a week and as millions line up for early voting armies of lawyers from both sides are poised to dispute the results in the courts there have been more than $300.00 lawsuits around election administration so far this year just days ago the supreme court ruled against republicans allowing pennsylvania and north carolina to continue counting ballots after election day look i'm i'm a former elections official litigation can reach havoc in the election process specially in the middle of the conduct of the election there are many variables but the bottom line is have patience unless one of the candidates wins in

a landslide americans and people around the world may have to wait a while before they learn who has been elected president of the united states robert oulds al jazeera los angeles so 2 candidates 2 contrasting visions for the future of america let's start with the corona virus pandemic trump has promised to develop a vaccine by the end of this year but he's refused to collaborate in global efforts by me money as promised access to free testing and investment of $25000000000.00 in vaccines to making free for all americans and a nationwide mosque mandate trump says he will create $10000000.00 new jobs in 10 months he will cut taxes for workers and boost manufacturing at home biden wants to spend $700000000000.00 on american products research his proposals include raising taxes for wealthy americans and increasing the national minimum wage trump. has responded to nation wide anti racism protests more aggressively calling for the use

of troops and military style equipment he's against defunding the police biden also does not want to defund the police but wants to spend more on community policing and trump has promised to continue to be tough on immigration by barring health care free tuition and welfare for undocumented immigrants and biden says hill reverse trumps travel ban on 6 muslim majority nations reunite children separated from their families at the mexico border and increase refugee admissions all right let's take this on further let's speak to robert gucci who is an associate professor at lancaster university also authored the book the trump presidency journalism and democracy joins us now robert welcome to the program so we've heard the respective visions in your view thank you how will it play out. well though that's great that you outlined those visions i wonder if the average american could do the same thing especially if they're standing in line to cast a ballot for 8 hours or did all of the work to overcome the logistical nightmare

that voting has been during this election. a lot of this comes down to the visceral reaction they hear when they hear the names of biden or trump either biden going back to the brock obama days when conservatives felt like they weren't being heard potentially and donald trump where conservatives have have a voice on capitol hill and then the reverse is you know fear when they hear donald trump or aspects of hope so i don't know if the average american could do what you just did which is to put down what the policies are for the next 4 years and if they're going to the ballot boxes really with that in mind or that emotional response that they've been brewing for the last 4 years right well we're going to see soon enough in the coming hours which way is going in as the numbers come in would you think we should look for clues as to how things are developing.

well the polls of course are our 1st clue right and you know m s n b c and other journalists are doing exit polls but that's very difficult because that has to be done over the phone it's not being done in person so we won't have exit polls necessarily in the same way we have in the past but the polls that are coming through are giving us some sort of hints i think the one thing we need to be cautious of is that it's still quite unpopular in many parts of the united states to be a trump supporter and so there may be people who just are answering questions about who they voted for if it was for donald trump and journalists and pollsters might be caught blind again as they did in 2016 when this comes through but the dimension here that also is problematic are the courts not just the supreme court the president trump put 3 people on but the federal courts that are hearing a lot of these cases that are being brewed by the trump administration he's put you know over 200 of those federal judges in their spot so that might have

a play as well in this election yeah litigation could be a very big deal couldn't it. look ahead to the coming and looking at the individual states where should we be what should we be watching closely. well it's really florida and pennsylvania right now are the ones that people are really focusing on and some of those may not just be because who were where the supporters are but about how the ballots are being cast and counted because of the logistics that cove it is has created but also because of some contention in the courts already and lawsuits and actions being proposed we may not know from pennsylvania for instance for another day or so what those ballots are what ballots were counted and previous earlier this week courts have denied g.o.p.

efforts to toss out ballots in other states so we don't know not just about who the supporters are where they're coming from but in pennsylvania in particular we're not going to know if those ballots are going to be counted when they'll be counted and when those results are going to come through so those are the places we need to pay most attention to right now ok great to get you will perspective do preach about the road gucci thanks will. now the united states has a unique way of electing its president it's called the electoral college system it is complicated and it is contentious and if you're talking about who actually got the most votes there's the problem each state is given each state is given a share of electors in that shed depends on the size of the state's population and therefore their number of representatives in congress so populous states like california texas new york and florida where they have more electoral college votes and the entire nationwide electoral college that's made up of $538.00 members

candidates need just over half of those votes to win and a minimum of $270.00 that's the magic number so jury an election when people vote for their preferred candidate they're actually voting for these electors who in their turn give their votes to the candidates most states have a window take all system so if you get the most votes at the ballot box you get all the electoral college votes for that state except for maine and nebraska they split their electoral college votes and in america all this means in america it's still possible to lose the popular vote and still win the election and that's happened 5 times twice in the last 5 elections like 2016 when hillary clinton got nearly 2900000 more votes than donald trump but trump flipped some crucial states with high electoral vote counts and got past the critical 270 number well with 38 electoral college votes at stake texas is one of the most important battlegrounds

in the country it hasn't supported a democratic nominee for president since 1976 but polls suggest joe biden is trailing donald trump by just 3 percentage points raising hopes among democrats there is a chance for victory how did you get castro is in houston and has more. i mean that day of the dead raid organized by democrats and showcasing this tradition of the texas latino community that's growing in political strain but who knows make up 40 percent of the population in texas and spencer favor democrats but historically have struggled with motor turnout but perhaps not this year because record number of new voters have passed a ballot many of them hispanics in fact more people have already cast their ballots early this election than all the votes in 26 but perhaps the biggest surprises that will show joe biden within striking distance of winning this state which is unheard

. has not supported a democratic candidate for president in more than 40 years but while biden support in places like houston and other big cities is strong in the basque rural areas of texas the support for president from remains. political analysts say it's unlikely that biden will win texas this year but he could come close and that in itself could cement this state new status as the biggest political battleground. well the outcome of this year's election could also come down to florida which is considered the biggest prize trump won the state 4 years ago but it was by a little more than one percentage point and it got bigger explains why florida is just so important. it seems like every 4 years when a presidential election comes around we end up talking about florida the state of course has a long history of razor thin elections that have a huge national impact but what makes it so important well the demographics in

a tend to reflect those of the entire nation about 20 percent of voters are elderly and there's a very large latino and hispanic population here but perhaps more importantly this state has 29 electoral college votes only texas and california has more interestingly no republican nominee has ever made it to the white house in almost a century without winning this state now voter turnout here has been huge shattering all records but coded 19 has been a massive issue in this state but one thing is. whatever happens on election day in this state really matters. here in al jazeera of course we will have live interrupted special coverage of the u.s. elections from $22.00 g.m.t. our correspondents will be reporting from crucial states right across the country we'll have expert analysis and of course with live reports as those results come in and you can watch that right here on on syria from 22 g.m.t.

. plenty more still ahead in this bulletin including the ugandan politician bobby wind arrested shortly after he was officially nominated for next year's presidential elections. cleaning up the damage operations begin in the philippines after it's hit by the worst storm of the year. hallo the western pacific still very active storm wise and sandy is still a growing tropical storm probably turn into a typhoon fairly serious on the. spurs to the east asia monsoon which is waving around over the water every now and again catches japan but behind it causes the cold air which will eventually turn into winter just about done so in half and well in the tar but it means that cold weather is going across the sea of japan and he.