welcome to bbc news. i'm mike embley. our top stories: joe biden says he's on course to win the us presidency but the vote counting continues. i'm not here to declare that we have won but i'm here to report that when the counties finished, we believe we will be the winners. the trump campaign launches legal action to try to stop the counting in michigan, pennsylvania, and georgia — and wants a recount in wisconsin. and we visit one so—called swing state, where the record number of postal votes mean they've got a lot on their plates.

hello to you. the us presidential election is still hanging in the balance, but in some key states the count seems to be moving in the direction ofjoe biden. the margins still are very tight, with just a few thousand votes in a handful of swing states will decide who wins, who loses. if we take a look at the current state of the electoral map, you can see michigan is being projected as a biden win, and it looks like he will also win wisconsin — that's the state shaded grey at the top of the map in the great lakes region. taking wisconsin puts him ever closer to winning the electoral college. let's take a look at how the electoral college is adding up — the magic number is 270 electoral votes, which opens the door to the white house. donald trump is currently on 214 and joe biden is on 243.

and look at the popular vote. it shows us that turnout is on course to be the highest in more than a century. alsojoe biden has collected more votes than his old boss barack obama did in 2008 which means he's already received more votes than any us presidential candidate — around 71 million. let's have a look at the state of the race in two of those two key swing states — nevada and arizona. starting with arizona. there 83% of the votes have been counted and biden leads by more than 90,000. that puts mr biden on 51% and trump on 48%. arizona has voted republican all the way back to george w bush in 2000, but looks like it could be going mr biden‘s way. and let's have a look at the state of the count in nevada. there it's a lot closer — each candidate is on 49% — and mr biden leads by fewer than 10,000 votes. there are around 15% of ballots still to be counted but the biden campaign is optimistic they will retain it. the state went with hillary clinton in 2016. mark lobel wraps up all the latest developments.

could the 77—year—old be on course for victory? he and his supporters are growing more and more confident of it. i'm not here to declare that we've won, but i am here to report, when the count is finished, we believe we will be the winners. that's because the much predicted blue wave, those slow in coming, though small in size than many predicted, may still be breaking through. buoyed by a projected democrat winning his state of michigan, and with both wisconsin and perhaps pennsylvania and georgia swinging towards biden, it may not be long now. and the democrats know that the only way they can win this election is to cheat in pennsylvania. and we've seen it from day one. we've seen it from day one. but donald trump australian team is claiming voterfraud, despite no evidence to back up his claims his team has filed lawsuits in georgia, michigan, and pennsylvania, seeking to

force the states‘ counts there, they have already demanded a recount in wisconsin, which they are entitled to. a key swing states they continue to count postal vote. now all eyes are on wisconsin, and sylvania, north carolina, and georgia. joe biden still needs to get to the 270 mark, no matter what his opponent says. we will winners. and as far as i‘m concerned we already have wanted. donald trump is adamant there are serious questions to a nswer there are serious questions to answer about the handling of this election. it may be that the courts do get involved, but for now the feeling is that the colour of victory that at first looked trump red, may now be turning a biden blue. mark lobel turning a biden blue. mark lobel, bbc news. 0ur correspondent barbara plett usher is in delaware, where the biden campaign is based. she says even though the democrats are on course for victory it‘s not the style they were planning. the democrats were hoping for a blue wave, a blowout victory to give mr biden momentum and a big mandate to repudiate president trump‘s legacy and push back against it and also to give him a mandate

to push for quite ambitious legislation to deal with the coronavirus epidemic to do with the economy, healthcare and so on and the waiters looking now, it‘s quite close and will be contentious and there will be litigation over the days, possibly weeks. the democrats are also hoping to get the senate which would have given them control over the house and the senate in order to facilitatejoe biden plans and at the moment they don‘t have control of the senate are not looking promising. for him to come out and say we must heal these partisan divisions when actually it has shown how deep those divisions are, it must mean that he sees he has a very uphill road ahead of him. 0ur correspondent james clayton joins me now from las vegas in nevada. james, what is the latest there? well, it's really,

really close, 8000 votes between biden and rob. at the moment biden isjust edging it. when he love to in las vegas? this is very much on‘s playground, trump has a massive hotel in las vegas. it is las vegas that is helping biden at the moment because in terms of nevada it is pretty much all republican apart from a little bit of loop rate at south las vegas, it is democratic, discerning democrat right now. it was a very hard seed to call this because of the economy. you might see some of the casinos behind me. a lot of them were shot, there was huge unemployment here, some of the eyesin unemployment here, some of the eyes in the country and there was a big question of whether people would lame donald trump, the commander in chief, or blame the democrats who actually run estate here. there isa actually run estate here. there is a democrat governor here. think a lot of people thought that arizona was the one to watch around here and nevada might bea watch around here and nevada might be a bit easier because hillary clinton took this date in 2016. it does appear that perhaps nevada is going to be loza, 85% of the votes have been tallied. we thought we might geta

been tallied. we thought we might get a result today. we‘re not going to get that. we‘re going to get information tomorrow. 9am pacific time, that was 5pm gmt. it could, potentially, decide the election. certainly important for election. certainly important foer election. certainly important for mr biden, isn‘t it, james, oui’ for mr biden, isn‘t it, james, our other correspondence doing the mass, they say even if mr biden doesn‘t get pennsylvania, if he gets arizona and nevada, arizona with 11 points electoral college, nevada with six, that gets him to 270 in the local college and gets into the local college and gets into the white house. that's absolutely right. there are lots of different pathways you can get to, obviously if he wins pennsylvania that changes things. but nevada could be crucial. there is absolutely a scenario where biden loses states like georgia and pennsylvania north carolina and suddenly nevada would be the crucial state for biden and it isa crucial state for biden and it is a very, very close. just one thing to say about the republicans here, they are very litigious, they have already laws all sorts of lawsuits

previous to the election. i think if it is close here you can pretty much guarantee you are going to see more lawsuits from the republicans to come here. james, thank you very much for that. james clayton in las vegas. mr trump hasn‘t spoken in front of the cameras in washington since around 2:30 in the morning, but he has been on twitter. he tweeted: in a few tweets earlier he said:

there is of course no evidence for that at the moment. that tweet, like several others in a similar vein, has been tagged with a warning by twitter saying that some of the information is disputed and might be misleading. professorjosh kastenberg, is a professor at the university of new mexico law school. before that he had a 20—year career as a lawyer and judge in the us air force. thank you very much indeed for your time. tell us about some of these challenges. 0n your time. tell us about some of these challenges. on some of them the supreme court has already ruled, hasn‘t it? that‘s correct. so the constitution of the united states gives to the states the authority to set a time, place, and manner of how to vote and how votes are counted. so it often strikes our friends around the world that pennsylvania might have a different way of counting votes than georgia. the republican sought to shape the election

prior to the vote so they raised lawsuits in pennsylvania, north carolina, and the democrats won their position in both, already, by the supreme court not over meaning and overturning the lower state supreme court‘s favourable rulings. 0n the other hand, the us supreme court issued rulings on wisconsin that were favourable to president trump prior to the election. now president trump is failing new appeals on pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin, and georgia and possibly nevada. we have some pictures coming in here of live counting in georgia. in some of these days it was republican—controlled legislatures that decreed that ballots should not be counted until election day orjust before, wasn‘t it, what are the chances of some of these challenges proceeding or succeeding? well, you can never fully predict what will happen toa fully predict what will happen to a lawsuit, but i‘d give the chances of succeeding very low

for this reason. in the year 2000 the united states supreme court ruled a case that we are 110w court ruled a case that we are now familiar with called bush versus gore. we may remember phrases like hanging chad, side—by—side, upside down child, what that stood for is the proposition that when a state legislature creates a law and that the state election counting follows that law the federal courts cannot intervene u nless federal courts cannot intervene unless the counting of ballots is discriminatory against people on the basis of race or youth or age or gender and that‘s our 15th, 19th, 26th amendment. what pennsylvania, north carolina, georgia, and michigan have done is followed their own state law. and in point of fact it appears, listening to the attorney general of michigan‘s argument,

that they did give meaningful opportunity to the republicans to watch the voting and the counting, that is called paul wotton, and that republicans did take advantage of the ability to do so. and so i think that while you could a lwa ys think that while you could always have the chance of maintaining a operable ruling at the lower courts, if the united states supreme court is to hold true to bush versus gore, then it is very unlikely that president trump will prevail at the highest court in the united states. professor josh kastenberg, very interesting to talk to you. thank you. thank you. the democrats are expected to remain in control of the house of representatives. but with a reduced majority. in the senate they were unable to unseat republican susan collins, who seems to have fought off a strong challenge from sara gideon. the democrats needed to gain three senate seats to take control there — so far they‘ve made a net gain of one.

stay with us on bbc news. still to come: as the contested counts and accusations of fraud continue, we look at what might be learned from the infamous florida vote two decades ago. the israeli prime minister, yitzhak rabin, the architect of the middle east peace process, has been assassinated. a 27—year—old jewish man has been arrested, and an extremist jewish organisation has claimed responsibility for the killing. at polling booths throughout the country, they voted on a historic day for australia. as the results came in, it was clear — the monarchy would survive. of the american hostages, there was no sign. they are being held somewhere inside the compound and student leaders have threatened that, should the americans attempt to rescue, they will all die. this mission has surpassed all expectations. voyager one is now the most distant man—made object anywhere in the universe, and itjust seems to keep on going.

tonight, we prove once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but the enduring power of our ideals. this is bbc news. good to have you with us. the latest headlines: joe biden says he‘s on course to win the us presidency as the vote counting continues. the trump campaign launches legal action to stop vote counting in michigan, pennsylvania and georgia — and wants a recount in wisconsin. let‘s get more on this now, and awarness of disinformation is on the rise and has been since the cambridge analytica scandal, after it was revealed the firm harvested the facebook data of 87 million people to use for advertising during elections. brittany kaiser was one of the original cambridge analytica whistleblowers and is the co—founder of the

own your data foundation. shejoins me live from denver. what concerns you about what you are seeing? right now i am incredibly concerned about working towards upholding the integrity of our democracy. i think we really need to think about how we got into this mess in the first place and solve some of the salient issues. icy three main issues, one is obviously polarisation, no what happens, half of america will lose the selection. i think we need more independence in office to provide balance, the two parties not working and this brings us to our second issue, the lack of national data protection and privacy legislation, or social media regulation, and that allows voter suppression and disinformation campaigns to flourish within the united states especially in an election year, especially during a pandemic where we have more springtime than ever before, and the third is the lack of willingness to upgrade

to 21st—century technology in order solve these problems. all of america‘s votes should have been counted yesterday, we should have known that every american‘s boat definitely counted, we could have used digital voting, technology is very simple and we already have successful pilot project. there isa successful pilot project. there is a very big changes and asks. what do you think the chances are of them happening? there are of them happening? there are our moves against bigger technology by both political parties, aren‘t there? absolutely but right now we should really be looking at the positives. already in this election we have seen some big wins for not just america election we have seen some big wins for notjust america but for the entire world, even if we may not be able to agree on parties we can agree on some issues, data protection and privacy was on the ballot and we passed proposition 2a in the state of california so congratulations to alistair mctaggart, and all the us that supported this campaign, of course legalising nature was also on the ballot, many states

went for legalising cannabis, went for legalising cannabis, we had ourfirst went for legalising cannabis, we had our first female senator that i got to vote for in the state of wyoming, who was going to help forward block chain voting in, —— voting in congress, so the biggest tragedy of this election is that the president is suggesting we should stop counting the votes of every american. this is a low point for protection of our civil rights, and i‘m sorry to break it to you, but that‘s not how democracy works. every party is in favour of changing the electoral college, abolishing it until they were the presidency, thinks the electoral college, every party is making it easierfor people to vote unless it is the other side that is having trouble voting. i think right now my biggest concern is that there should not be a single individual in our government thatis individual in our government that is against using technology to make our voting

system technology to make our voting syste m m o re technology to make our voting system more transparent, more trackable, or verifiable, because every american wins, our democracy wins, when that is the truth. using pieces of paper allows the bird to be manipulated, we should not be using it anymore and only people who seek to influence the vote in a way that is not proper, in a way that is not actually the vote of the american people would want to continue to not use technology in our voting systems. thank you very much. winning the swing state of pennsylvania is key to winning the white house. but authorities there say the record number of postal votes has put extra pressure on officials, which is why the count has still to be officially declared. 0ur correspondent clive myrie explains. there is an irony in the middle of all of this because in some of those battleground states where there is a huge contraversy over the counting of mail—in ballots and absentee ballots, as here in philadelphia and pennsylvania, its republican lawmakers who refused to allow the local

authorities, mainly democrats, to start the process of counting those absentee ballots earlier in the election cycle. now, what are we left with? chaos, anger, and recrimination. all this should be redundant now. the election ephemera of the night before. it is the morning after election day. and as we very well knew might be the case, we are still awaiting a result... here in pennsylvania — and a handful of other crucial states in america — conversations reflect an election still in play. 0ver breakfast tables this morning, and possibly dinner tables tomorrow night. marie pizzo and mary lorenzo are sprightly 80—somethings who‘ve seen a lot in their lives, but nothing like this. they‘ve got a lot of... ..lots of votes yet to count.

i always say, "may the better man win, and let's hope that when they are in office, they do the right thing." period. but who will be in office? it‘s still unclear. here in philadelphia, they were counting absentee and mail—in ballots through the night — with a million left to process by the morning. and now the trump campaign is taking legal action in pennsylvania. the man leading the count told me he‘s unconcerned. i want it over with too, more than anyone else, i assure you. but that being said, we have to get it right. we cannot get it wrong. there are no do overs when it comes to counting elections. but why all the problems? covid—19. republicans are comfortable voting in person while more democrats voted by mail. that‘s where we are... listen to brian rosenwald, a former senior election official here in philadelphia.

you have to open in pennsylvania an outer envelope, check a signature, then separate out an inner envelope, open that one, and then get the ballot out. it takes time when you‘re talking about hundreds of thousands of ballots in some of these counties. and the public officials in pennsylvania, in michigan, wisconsin all said it was going to take time. you voted back in october? october 23. in the middle of all the chaos, seemingly forgotten, the voter. meet debbie smith, who checked online last night to see if her early vote had been counted, and she couldn‘t find it. it wasn‘t there. it stilljust said mail—in. are you nervous it still might not be there? i know. so now it‘s there. it‘s there and recorded. so it‘s there. late afternoon and other worried voters are on the streets. they all completed their

ballots in good faith. will america respect their wishes? clive myrie, bbc news, in philadelphia. over this entire election has hung the cloud of legitimacy. there are already lawyers and legal wrangling, contested cou nts a nd accusations of fraud. the president set the narrative early on for this —suggesting mail in ballots would be stolen and that if he lost it would be through foul play. the last time a presidential election outcome was this contested, it went all the way to the supreme court. the bbc‘s gabriel gatehouse asks what we might learn from the infamous florida vote two decades ago. the voting has finished and still, there is no result. an anxious nation waits. we have been here before, 20 years ago, in what feels like a distant era. excuse me one second. florida goes for al gore.

as election night unfolded, there is a lot of uncertainty and confusion about who won florida. the network has called this thing, but the people actually counting the votes are coming up with a different perspective, and so, we are upbeat about things. florida pulled back into the undecided column. in 2000, florida held the key. whoever won the sunshine state would take the presidency. bush wins, headline of the hour, headline of the year. al gore was on his way to make his concession speech, having already phoned his rival, when his team told him to wait. cbs news says now that florida has pulled back. this race is simply too close to call, and until the results of the recount is concluded, and the results in florida become official, our campaign continues. it was the election of the hanging puck, inconclusive ballot papers that held the result of the whole election in the balance.

what ended up happening was 36 days of legal, bureaucratic warfare over which ballots were to be counted, and ultimately, this well of litigation ended up at the doorstep of the supreme court. the supreme court eventually ruled for bush, and the rest, as they say, is history. today we are still a long way from the drama of 2000. no one is talking about the supreme court, yet. no one has called this election, yet. no one, that is, apart from the president himself. so we will be going to the us supreme court, we want all voting to stop, we don‘t want them to find any ballots at four o‘clock in the morning and add them to the list, 0k? the partisan rivalries of 20 years ago were no less bitter than they are today, but what is different is the tone. no matter what the outcome, america will make the

transition to a new administration with dignity, with full respect for the freely expressed will of the people, and with pride in the democracy we are privileged to share. some still believe that bush got fewer votes than al gore 20 years ago, but when the supreme court ruled that was it, its legitimacy was not questioned. this election continues to test america‘s faith in its institutions, by whatever means an eventual win is secured. just a quick reminder of the main story in case you needed it, live pictures coming in from boston, massachusetts where there is a count every voter protest, the contest still on a knife edge, no clear winner as the vote counting goes on, the trunk campaign has launched legal action to stop vote counting in michigan, pennsylvania and wisconsin, and it was a complete recount of

votes there as well. there is much more on the bbc website, any time. hello there. it‘s pretty cold out there at the moment across more southern parts of the uk. wednesday started with some frost quite widely in england and wales. what followed was a generally dry and sunny autumn day. but, for scotland and northern ireland, we saw more cloud moving in during the afternoon and the evening. you can see that clearly on the satellite picture from earlier on. that cloud moving very slowly southwards. we actually have weakening weather front bringing some damp and drizzly weather and lowering the cloud onto the hills. but we‘ve got high pressure across the south, this is where we‘ve got the clearer skies and we‘ve got those lower temperatures as well. milder in the north, but colder in the south. maybe some frost around for mid wales, midlands and southwards. notjust some frost, some mist and fog too. that‘s going to be dense in places in the morning. gradually through the morning

that will tend to lift and break. may take a while in the home counties, mind you. then we get sunshine coming through. but, for north wales, northern england it looks quite cloudy, damp and misty over the hills. further north, we‘ve got more of a breeze from the atlantic. that‘s significant. it‘s blowing in a lot of cloud but the cloud breaks to the east of the high ground in a bit of scotland. and a bit of warm, 15 or 16 degrees. elsewhere ten to 12. similar to what we had on wednesday. this time in the morning we‘ve got much more mist and fog around. and into friday morning, again there will be dense patches of fog. again it‘s more likely for the midlands southwards. this time on friday that fog will tend to lift more readily. the breeze will pick up a little bit more and we should see sunshine developing. further north, some low cloud around, misty over the hills. cloud tending to thin, some sunshine coming through away from the northwest. the temperatures ten to 12 degrees again. a little bit milder perhaps towards the south east, but the winds are picking up

in the far southwest. the wind direction is changing just in time for the weekend. that‘s going to be quite significant because that‘s going to draw up some milder air and push it very slowly northwards. instead of the high pressure that‘s keeping it quiet at the moment, it‘ll be quite cold. that‘s moving away towards continental europe. and lowering pressure from iberia means we‘ve got the threat of some rain coming up from the south. maybe the odd shower around on saturday rain across northern and western areas on sunday. temperatures gradually rising. higher temperatures towards the south possibly up to 16 or 17 c.

this is bbc news.

the headlines: joe biden says he‘s on course to win the us presidency as vote counting continues. michigan is projected as a biden win, and it looks like he could also win wisconsin, putting him ever closer to winning the electoral college. european monitors described the election as competitive and well managed. the trump campaign has launched legal action to stop vote counting in michigan, pennsylvania, and georgia, accusing democrats of scheming to disenfranchise republican voters. mr trump‘s campaign has also called for there to be a recount of ballots in wisconsin saying there had been reports of irregularities. the democrats are expected to remain in control of the house of representatives, but with a reduced majority. in the senate they were unable to unseat republican susan collins. the democrats needed to gain three senate seats to take control — so far they‘ve made a net gain of one.