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millions in the u. s. vote in mid term elections that will decide the balance of power in congress and the future of prison. jo biden's agenda. the main issues dominating the poll, rising inflation and women's reproductive rights to the top court overturned the rights to abortion. ah, no, i'm fully back to you. boy, you're watching al jazeera life from doha will have extensive coverage of the u. s . mid terms with live reports. some correspondence across the country also coming out. oh, celebration says it's the allows several migrants rescued in the mediterranean to disembark, but another ship is denied port. plus, i'm malcolm web at a comp for displace people need gamma in the democratic republic of congo,

tens of thousands of people who arrived here in the last week or so, seeing violence. fighting between the n 23 rebel group and government forces. so millions of voters in the united states the casting their ballads in one of the most consequential mid term elections in years, which is entering its final hours. the 1st balls have now closed, including the critical swing state of georgia nationwide control of congress and the future of present jo biden's agenda hang in the balance while we have several reporters covering these elections for, as john henderson is in atlanta, georgia. gabriel, his own door is in pittsburgh, pennsylvania. i white house correspondent kimberly hawk it is standing by in washington, but rose to alan fisher on capitol hill in just a few minutes. but 1st, this report from 0 vanny on what's at stake in these elections and how it all works

. they're called mid terms because they come right in the middle of the president's 4 year term. here's what's at stake, all 435 seats in the house of representatives where the democrats currently hold only a tiny 8 seat majority. and $35.00 of the said it's $100.00 seats are right now the senate is evenly divided. so that means a change of control in just one seat could put the republicans in charge with all that voting across the country. the election really comes down to only a few battleground states, only 10 of those 35 senate races or really competitive in the house. it's about 50 out of $435.00. joe biden is not on any of these ballots. yet. midterms are traditionally seen as a test of the president strength if his democratic party does poorly, than it could make it almost impossible for biden to get anything done over the next 2 years. also, congress isn't the only thing. americans are voting on. $36.00 of the 50

u. s. states are also electing governors. that list includes places like florida, like georgia, wisconsin, pennsylvania, arizona, and nevada, michigan, all of which will be important battle grounds in the next presidential election in 2024. and 27 states are electing their secretary of state. usually when we say that, i know we mean america's top diplomat, but not here at the state level, it means a completely different thing. it refers to the official who overseas administrative services, like professional licensing or registering corporations. and crucially, in most states, the secretary of state is also in charge of elections. and that is suddenly more important than ever because of the elephant in the room. donald trump, more than $300.00 republicans were on the ballot at every level this midterm. falsely believed that the 2020 presidential election was flawed, or they have repeated trumps claim without evidence that the election was stolen

from him. bottom line, people who reject america's last presidential election could end up in charge of running the next 12 years after voters gave joe biden, a chance and ousted trump. the election itself now appears to be on the ballots. and you could argue, so as the future of democracy in america. now as serial mentioned there, in addition to members of congress and governors, a lot of attention this year is on races for secretary of state. or you probably know that as the title for the u. s. foreign minister, but at the state level, they refer to the official in charge of elections. normally these contests don't attract a lot of attention, but this year supporter is a former president. donald trump, at his false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, have won the republican nomination in states like arizona, michigan, and nevada, as well as several other states. all of those are likely to be key battle grounds in the next presidential election. many of these candidates supposed postal ballads

and want to limit early voting, both of which are common in much of the united states. they say those types of voting can't be trusted and are threatened to refuse to certify future election results if they are in charge. and doubt the reported outcome? well, let's speak now to jocelyn benson, who's the michigan secretary of state. he's joining us from detroit michigan. thank you very much, miss benson for being with us. please explain to i international audience 1st. how do you as secretary of states, a michigan oversee this election when you're on the ballot? well, we create a firewall. essentially i have a staff of very professional staff, a department of elections within my agency, within my office. and they oversee the elections process for over 1500 communities in our state. so it's actually a very decentralized process. elections are actually run and administered at the local level. at the state level,

we simply provide assistance support and policy interpretation and provide resources to ensure at the local level, all 1500 communities are able to fulfill their legal duty and administering elections. and now michigan was at the center of many of the controversies during the last presidential election in 2020. are you expecting issues this time around and if yes, how do you result them? well, just as in 2020, we've had a very smooth election day to day. what the issues are often arise are from our candidates who are trying to create or exploit small issues, to make them larger, to justify trying to overturn election results. that's what we dealt with in 2020 a smooth election that was then met with an unprecedented effort to undermine our election results. were hopeful that those same bad actors won't try again this time around and we're ready if they do. but throughout the day, the processes themselves have gone very smoothly, and people have been voting in record numbers. yeah. now republicans went to court

a few days ago trying to get thousands of valid in the detroit area in michigan throw. not because of a technicality, a court we know, refused to allow that. what does that tell us about where the system stands? at this point? it tells us that the system can withstand merit less lawsuits that are filed to try to invalidate the votes and voices of thousands of voters. because the law is clear, you have a right to vote absentee in michigan and a photo is exercised. that right there bow their ballot will be counted. so i am proud to make sure that every eligible voter is able to vote and every valid vote is counted. and it was quite appalling that any kennedy for office let alone anyone at all would try to interfere with that process and in for no real good reason. try to have ballots disqualified. yeah. and you have a number of election denies on the ballot. as we've said, president biden is portraying this election as a fight for democracy in the us. what can be done? big picture, what can be done to restore overall confidence in elections in the us and how they

run? well the facts and the truth and law and the constitution are all very clear. busy that our elections are smooth, secure, and the results an accurate reflection of the. busy of the people, what we really need are more political leaders to simply just tell the truth. instead of trying to gain celebrity or raise money off of misinformation, conspiracy theories and lies. we need leaders to simply tell the truth that our elections are secure and that even if they lose an election, they'll stand by the results. unfortunately, we see too many leaders choosing to lie and falsely declare victory or prematurely accept exp, explain election results before ballots. are counted and as long as we have those bad actors in the system, we're going to keep fighting these battles of misinformation. thank you so much for taking the time to speak to us. jocelyn benson is the michigan secretary of state joining us there from detroit. thank you for your time. thanks for having me. are,

as we mentioned, some polls are starting to close. now let's check in with alan fisher, who's on capitol hill. what are the early indications and early bow weather's allen, that we need to keep an eye on? okay, places that we're looking at include indiana and virginia, where the polls closed at the top of the hour. so we should start to get some results from there in the next 2030 minutes or so. and probably a final result. the next couple of hours we're looking at indiana congressional district, one. the reason for that is that it certainly tilts towards the democrats, but the republican there has made a really good run over the election campaign. and if he wins the she wins, they are. then that's a real problem for the democrats. if you moved on into virginia, you've got 3 female congress, women, abigail, spawn burger, jennifer wex, then and also a lynn laria. they're all considered moderate republican and moderate democrats if they start to lose their seats. if the 3 of them lose, than it is going to be a very bad night for the democrats, so they'll be keeping

a very close eye on those at lee results to see if this red wave is going to break over. jo biden's white house and then you go to the, to east coast senate seats that are most contested. there's one in pennsylvania and they are, it of course, was a republican seat. the republicans are hoping to hold it as a democrats to join federal min, who's the lieutenant governor in the state. they're hoping he might be able to win, and the trained older big guns they over the we can remember with the 1st appearance, joint appearance of the selection campaign of both barack obama and joe biden. in fact, on saturday we had presidents, 4445 and 46 in the state old campaigning. and then there is georgia as well. now, georgia is currently held by the democrats, herschel walker, who's a big football star. he is running for the republicans at the republicans think he might be able to win that. and of course, if he does, then the democrats are in real trouble because in the senate it's a 5050 split at the moment. so a swing of just one seat either way,

we give either the republicans or the democrats, that the majority in the senate, and that has a big implication for joe biden. and what he wants to do over the next 2 years on to talk about the implications for joe biden. allen, thank you very much. that's bringing my i white house correspondent, kimberly hawk it. so kimberly present biden in the democrats. i watching these returns very anxiously. i imagine because the prediction saw that there's going to be this massive red wave. tell us about what the present has been up to 1st in the last few hours. yeah, well we know that the president spent a recent hours making last minute phone calls to number of radio stations, particularly to minority communities, trying to get people to go to the polls in the final hours. now we understand he is at the white house a. he is watching these returns as they come in with his advisors. but for the most part, what we do know is that the president is still remaining somewhat optimistic in spite of what appears to be somewhat bad news. the president is proud of the agenda

that he has accomplished thus far. given the fact that he has been able to expand the social safety net, put forward very ambitious climate change agenda. and even the president and his advisors say, i, even if that is about to shift in some way, there is still this belief that somewhat this can still be accomplished moving forward. so the white house is looking at this and being realistic, but at the same time, already figuring and strategizing about how to move forward. even if this does mean a presidency of a democrat president working with the republican congress. okay, kimberly, thank you very much for that. kimberly how kit live fair at a in washington dc. kimberly's on white house correspondent. now one of the battle ground states that we're watching is pensylvania, gave it to his own door is traffic tracking development in pittsburgh, pittsburgh joins us now live pennsylvania. gabe is democrats, top pickup opportunity for the senate

yet? sure is this race is very tight here for the senate. it's between uh the republican trump endorsed a celebrity dr. macbeth laws against a democrat to is a plain spoken lieutenant governor john betterment. this has been such a close race for the last several months. it was that the democrat was ahead by a fairly comfortable margin for many months through the summer. but the republican office in the closing stages of his campaign, sorta positioned himself as sort of a centrist, appealing to independent voters. and that seemed to have really helped here, as now the latest polls are showing both candidates tied at 46 percent, but the polls here in pencil in pennsylvania are going to be closing and about 45 minutes. so we should start to get some of the results in this very highly

anticipated senate race here. they could control other fate of the u. s. senate. they've been pouring a ton of money into this race just in the last month. more than a $115000000.00, an outside political advertising has been spent here just in this state. so everyone's going to be watching this very closely. i should point out that there's a high probability that we will not have all the results in by tuesday evening election. officials here say they have about 1100000 male in ballots. and according to local law here, they don't start counting that with those demand liam ballads until up in about 45 minutes or so. okay. in many counties say they won't even be begin to finalize the mail and ballot counting process until wednesday, maybe even thursday. how can do thank you very much. suppose closing in pennsylvania as gave setting about 45 minutes and

a half started closing in another battle ground state. georgia, john henderson is in atlanta forest. so polls are starting to close day, but i understand that some are being kept open, some polling stations, what are the expectations in georgia and remove the bird? that's right. there are a few plain precincts around the atlanta area that are remaining open because they had a little difficulty opening earlier this morning. sometimes they can mean something like people forgot the keys or slept in whatever the normal kinds of problems you have when you have. so many precincts around the country. and the reason georgia is so important is that while gabe was telling you there they, pennsylvania is a possible pick up. georgia is one. the democrats cannot afford to lose refill warnock one this seat in january 2021 and are run off. and the democrats need to keep this, or they're gonna have to pick up a seat elsewhere. as you can hear behind me what they're calling a victory party has already begun with. they don't know yet if they have anything

to celebrate right now, this race is between. raphael warn off the incumbent, senator, who's been only in the seat for about a year. he's the 1st black senator from georgia. he is also a pastor who preaches from the pulpit once occupied by the reverend martin luther king, and he's running against a famous local, former football star for sure. and randal herschel walker on the university of georgia team. and this has been a mud slinging slug fast on television. people have spent $250000000.00 on is raised. that's how much interest there has been 2 point. 5000000 people voted early or, or by absentee ballot, that's out of 7000000 voters. so a lot of those votes are in, they're starting to be tallied right now with less than a 1000000 votes in it appears that raphael warning has more votes. but if you should know that they count the absentee ballots and the early votes, 1st,

those tend to favor warnock, so it won't. we won't have any meaningful numbers for some time, but those ads have been devastating. they've been very personal. all pointing out the crucial walker has been alleged to have had to abortions, although he is anti abortion. rather that he's pressured girls to do so. and, and there have been allegations are in these ads also against raphael warnock going back to the de la, where he back to the days where his ex wife accused him of running over a foot during the arguments of a slug fast. and my colleague mike hannah has put together a background on his race chic. alyssa, ah, african americans are the past, has growing boating block in georgia. now nearly 40 percent of the states electorate. that's an increase of some 7 percent and 2 decades. ah, other minority communities of growing as well. and the shifting demographics had

much to do with the traditionally red state, turning blue. ah, and people like pasta andre osborne, a working to build on 20 twenty's gains. having the right type of energy in an election. that's not a presidential election, is incredibly important. so we're trying to encourage people to vote every time, but voting regulations have changed significantly since 2020, stung by their losses. the republicans governing the state passed senate bill 2 o 2, which among other restrictions requires voters to provide a picture id at the polling place. there is certainly of movement to limit or drastically reduce the voice of the people by minimizing the impact of their vote. but the new law also expands early voting,

which may have a result, the framers didn't intend. it really depends on how the voters decide to turn out this year. do they decide to vote absentee? in that case, the law would restrict them if they decide to come out and vote in person and do early voting, the law may actually help them and be on their side. the crucial senate race sees the incumbent democrat, raphael warnock up against the trump endorsed former american football star, herschel walker, whose campaign has been marked by allegations of domestic violence. and the claim that the anti abortion advocate actually paid for a partners abortion. i think every vote forget because a lot against mine, it not like they did want somebody to let the main thing is to defeat republicans and keep them out of power. ultimately, the result will be determined by the size of the turn off at the polls. the larger the boat, the greater the possibility of

a democratic party when the reality is simple. if the democrats do not win in georgia, they will, in all likelihood, lose control of the house, end of the senate. and that will be an onset to republican pres. my kind of, i'll just era so that that's all check in with hydro castro who's in another important fate. wisconsin, heidi is live in madison, where major baccha former present donald trump is running for sen. wisconsin has seen some very tight races. heidi in the past, especially in the last 2 presidential elections and democrats, are i in a chance there to flip a senate seat that's are fully similar to the situation we just heard about in pennsylvania. this would be another rare opportunity on this electoral map for democrats to pick up a seat in the senate. the incumbent senator is republican. ron johnson, who as you said, is

a strong backer of donald trump. johnson is one who has downplayed the january 6th attack by trump, supporters on the u. s. capital and johnson's office was implicated in a failed effort to deliver false electors to the doctoral college and effort to overturn the results of that election. so certainly he is on the ballot here. he is also one that is anti abortion. that is something that his challenger, mandela barnes, who is the democratic lieutenant governor in wisconsin, has been hammering home to voters, trying to use abortion as the issue post supreme court ruling, which of course, stretched away federal protections of abortion from americans trying to turn out the vote among democrats in this wing state and absolutely every last code vote counts in wisconsin. we've seen that proven time and time again. the last 2 presidential elections decided by less than one percentage point. and here in

madison, throughout the day, we saw efforts to turn out the vote among young voters, especially as democrats are i in the state again as one of their key oppertunity is to pick up that senate seat. they still have the political winds, though, facing against them, given that, as we've mentioned, it is more difficult for the party in power and control of the white house to maintain their grasp on congress during the mid time election year. so this may be an uphill battle in wisconsin, and we've seen some evidence of that reflected in recent polls. where barn 2, again, is the democratic challenger for senate. he started out with a lead in polling or in the campaign, but in the last few weeks has fallen behind. johnson trailing him by 2 percentage points as of last week. but again, anything can happen in wisconsin and is truly deeply purple state fully. thank you . heidi heidi, is your castro live there in madison wisconsin. well, it's now bringing laura kyle, who will take us through the latest trends and results on election night. lord,

fully thank so much for it. starting to heat out. we've got poles, clothing, and 6 states already, including the battle ground state of georgia. now let's look at the state of play in the house of representatives. this is what it's all about. tonight is the lower chamber of congress, the legislative body of government. we've got 435 seats here. they are all up for grabs. 218 aren't needed for a majority. so far. democrats of not what any seats projected the republicans bear . we have 3 seats. that of course is going to be changing rapidly. throughout the night in the coming hours, i take a look now at the senate here we've got a 100 seats only $35.00 of them up for grabs and fences tend to run for 6 year terms. here we've got democrats at $3070.00 includes 2 independence who are allied with them. republicans at 31 now they need 51 seats to take the majority. there.

we've got a couple of races that we've got, the results being called, all ready. let's take a closer look at those south carolina, only one percent of the votes counting reported, but we know that this already has gone to tim scott, keeping his seat. it's very predictable outcome in a very read states. let's go on now to kentucky. that's another reliably republican stronghold though, but the incumbent round paul, taking a healthy lead to take the seat back to the senate. democrats, however, in vermont have projected to hold bare seat peter welsh. he is replacing the senate, my senior member. that's pat levy. he's retiring. so those are the races that we know we're likely to have predictable outcomes, of course, is not indicative of how the whole senate race is going to go for that. we need to

hinge on a crucial number of swing states such as georgia, rafael warnock. he's the incumbent democrat, senator. he looks way ahead here on these figures, but that's because in georgia, they've already started counting the early boats and they tend to favor the democrats. so we do expect the republicans to catch up quickly here is indeed an a tight race with the republican herschel walker. if neither of them reach 50 percent, that state will have to go to a run off in december. let's take a look at these senate races across the map of america. all of the dark gray ones are where the senate race, the 36 races are. as 35 races are taking place. the ones in yellow are the swing states. these are the ones throughout the night that we're gonna be keeping a most close eye on north carolina and ohio, the over on the east side. those polls closed in 15 minutes. so no bit more about those. in a moment, the other big swing states were looking at at pennsylvania,

florida, arizona, and wisconsin, and just a reminder of the tally in the senate. as of these poll start to close $37.00 seats for the democrats. 31 for the republicans. while our special extended coverage begins in just under an hour's time at o one that g m t on wednesday, we'll have correspondence across the u. s. to break down all the results and explain what it means for those in america. and why the midterms matter to the rest of the world? it's going to be a pretty exciting night for lighting in a long one friday. thank you very much, laura for that. thank you. i. let's turn to our the world news now. and one day is accusing democratic republic of congo of provocation. after a congolese fighter jet entered rondon air space. the hours he says it was a mistake. congolese brains have been targeting and 23 rebels in the east of the country. wander has been accused of backing the m 23 fighters and assertion which

galle has denied malcolm waive records from the eastern. darcy city of gama de dean, debbie's, son garner, and her husband sher curry, took us to where they buried their newborn son. just a few hours before we met them. they said they fled their village last week when the m 23 rebel group bombed it. so they walked for 3 days, sleeping rough on the roadside to reach here. can you show enjoyed the gift family child was very tired in my womb because of the days i spent on the road my pregnancy started feeling very bad. then yesterday i gave birth, but the child passed away to day. their son, just 10 hours old, is one of the youngest to die in the conflict between congolese government forces them $23.00 widely understood to be a proxy of neighboring rwanda. although rwandan denies it. this is their new home.

among many new arrivals at this camp for this place, people on the outskirts of the city of coma florence b. her he case showed us where people are sleeping. she was a farmer and the community health worker until she fled to fighting. earlier this year, she told us $22.00 children of died here, and 8 women have had miscarriages. in the last 10 days. when i came be, are born built up. oh, we're fleeing the barnes getting tired on the road and sleeping out doors. so you have, babies still boiled some miscarriages are the direct consequence of the trauma from being bombed by the rebels. some are dying in their sleep just a few days after being born because of living and such bad conditions. there isn't enough food to eat. many people here is surviving on just one meal a day and the shelters aren't adequate. it's raining heavily, almost every day. here at the moment, some people were given

a plastic sheets by the government. others told us they had to sell it just to be able to afford food for they've made shelters from leaves and sticks. instead, there isn't enough clean water to drink. and the, with tens of thousands of families here struggling in these conditions with hardly any help. congos army says his new offensive will help. he lost ground to m $23.00 over the last year. now it's pushing back bombing rebel positions with fight jess and attack helicopters. and 23 wrote in a statement that it's the asteroids that a displacing people. every one we spoke to here said they ran in fear before that as soon as the rebels came close and 23, a widely known for forcing civilians to fight or work. and so killing them if they don't nobody here knows if or when it will be safe enough to go home.