i'm john berman alongside alisyn camerota. welcome to our viewers in the united states and all around the world. an anxious nation's wait may

soon be over. joe biden is closing in on the presidential election. >> biden's lead over president trump continues to grow in key battleground states around we do expect a new round of counted ballot this morning that could put biden over the top, but the president is vowing to fight on in court, while biden is urging the nation to come together. >> this is the electoral vote count. joe biden has 253. the president has 213. joe biden is potentially one state away from crossing that 270 threshold. that'sy we begin with the cnn key race alert. >> the key state, pennsylvania, has enough votes to give joe biden the presidency. he currently leads by 28,000 votes. that number has been growing. tens of thousands outstanding

this morning. we could be getting some of that in. it's coming largely from democratic areas, his lead is expected to grow. georgia, we got new votes from overnight. joe biden leads by 7,000 vote, 16 electoral votes up for grabs. this is a razor thin margin. joe biden is expanding it. there will be a recount. the state of arizona. 11,000 votes. biden's votes have been shrinking. republicans will tell you that the president needs to win 60% of the remaining vote to win. he hasn't been getting that. so stay tuned. more votes expected from arizona this morning. finally, nevada, six electoral votes, joe biden leading by 22,000 votes at this moment, most of the remaining vote, over 100,000 left to count. from clark county which has been padding joe biden's margin, again, we'll hear more from nevada later this morning.

let's look at where things stand overall. joe biden has 253 electoral votes, dew point has 2vote s, donald trump has 213. one state we're pennsylvania be with its 20 electoral votes, it could give joe biden the presidency. that's where we begin when we walker of the to phil mattingly at the magic wall. >> it's the anchor of the blue wall. he's almost there, slowly, steadily, surely. his vote total has been growing, overtaking a nearly 600,000 vote margin from president trump. as the ballots grow fewer and fewer, joe biden looks on if path the path to win the state. this is why democrats have confidence in the state of pennsylvania. look down here. the blue of southeast pennsylvania, it's anchored by philadelphia. if you want to know how things stand, look at this margin.

95% reporting. our understanding is about 20 to 25,000 votes outstanding from philadelphia, and those votes are all mail-in ballots. mail-in ballots in this county, they have been going 85% to 86%. whatever margin you're looking at, it's going to grow just from pennsylvania alone or philadelphia alone. and if you push out from the city of philadelphia, again, joe biden racking up vote after vote after vote. without fail, those absentee ballots are going largely to joe biden. you can even move west in the state and you get to another democratic stronghold. you get to allegheny county, home of pittsburgh, where 25,000 are left outstanding. those votes are also mail-in ballots and going heavily toward joe biden. you pull up allegheny and it's tight.

59.2%, 39.3%. the reality of those mail-in ballots which democrats focus so heavily on in the middle of a pandemic, they've been going to joe biden. so, john, when you look at the outstanding vote right now, at least in terms of mail-in ballots, not just provisionals, but mail-in ballots, joe biden is looking mostly at places where he's picking up every single batch he pulls in, including the outstanding vote that might come this morning. >> leave allegheny county up. why? on the phone with us right now, i'm just hearing, the county executive from allegheny county, rich fitzgerald. rich, thanks so much for being with us right now. first of all, thank you for the work you're doing. please thank all the poll workers working for us. give them a giant hug. if you can, can you tell us how many blolt ballots you have lef count? >> we probably have somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000, 22,000, something like that.

but not all of those ballots will be good because some may be duplicates. they're going through these today. day're painstaking. they have to be done by hand to match them up to make sure those votes did not already get counted. we're probably looking at 20,000 that would be counted. and in allegheny county, the mail-in ballots have been running 80/20, 80% for joe biden and 20% for president trump. then we have 17,000 provisional ballots that will be counted. they mr. probably trend similarly, maybe a little less, maybe 70, 75 to 25. but those will be counted probably by early next week. >> all right. that's important information you gave us, information we didn't have clarity on. 20,000 to 21,000 mail-in ballots that still need to be counted, although, there might be

duplicates due to certain circumstances that happened in your county and nearly 17,000 provisional votes. rich, when do you think we'll be getting our next update from you? when will you be feeding us results? >> i would say later this morning or early afternoon. they'll begin this process after 9:00 and upload a certain batch, i don't know. maybe a few thousand at a time every few hours, and that's probably lchl like whalmost lik happened yesterday, last evening. i think we did one batch of 5,300 and then 9,000. i think our last batch was a little over 3,000. >> rich, phil mattingly here. thanks again for tall work you and your folks are doing. you moved pretty quickly over the course of yesterday with all the batches. you'll have a batch this morning and throughout course of the

day. are you going to go through several different releases? how are you mapping it out? >> i believe that's how they plan on doing it. what i will tell you is the deeper they go into that batch, the slower it will go. they went probably with, i'll call it, the easier wins first. the further down you go in the 29,000, those are the ones that really have to painstakingly be looked at, monitored, checked for a duplicate, check that it went to the right district. if it didn't go to the right district, then certain parts of the vote would have to be canceled out for the state senate or representative. it wouldn't affect the presidential, other than it will take some time. >> you talked duplicates. are you able to know a percentage of duplicate ballots? the reason for people to understand is you had to send out two rounds because of an error from a contractor. what percentage of duplicates

are you seeing? >> very few, to be honest with you. what people would do is most likely disregard the incorrect ballot they got and then send back the corrected ballot that had a bright orange slash on it, bright orange banner on it so that they knew. but you still have to go through it, you know, ballot by ballot. some people did send the wrong ballot, but not very many. >> rich, can you go into, you know, given a lot of the misconceptions that are out there or perhaps congratulatial that are out there, can you talk about the process you're going through right now given the fact that you got to this place because as john was talking about with the duplicate values? what are the parties or campaigns able to see and do during this process? >> they're able to see all of it. your cameras have been there, other media outlets watching the

entire system. there are cameras everywhere, cameras, eye in the kind on the ceilings. probably as many cameras as you would have at a casino. it's well documented, well viewed by all parties, the biden party, the trump party, the republican, democratic, libertarian. it's visible. so you sit there and watch these folks as they open the ballot, go through the ballot and look at it. so it is very, very transparent. and, quite frankly, they've been praised at how transparent it is. >> rich fitzgerald, we can't thank you again for the work you're doing, the work the poll workers are doing, and for giving us this update, because this is solid information right now that's very helpful to us to understand where things are and where they're going. terrific work. thanks so much, rich. >> all right. thanks, guys. have a good day. >> phil, could we just do the math here for one second? let's do the maine ballots so people know what we're talking

about. he said 20,000 largely coming in 80%, 80% for joe biden at this point. just so people know, if it's 75% or if it's 66%, it would be 15,000 to 5,000, which would be a 10,000-vote pad. >> yep. >> you're going to see a 12,000-vote pad or so by his calculations from allegheny county alone. is that fair. >> yeah. that's the math. and i think it underscores -- and you're being very conservative based on what he was saying. >> yes. >> so the name of the game is what's outstanding and how can president trump make up margins if he's down by 28,000 votes. the reality of what rich was just describing which tracks with what we've seen not just across allegheny but across conservative counties is there are such limited options for president trump to pick up votes. roy you're seeing whether you're in philadelphia or allegheny county is opportunities for vb biden to pick up 10,000, 12,000,

15,000 votes. it's why they predict by the end of the day or end of the count, it's not going to be 28,000 or 35,000. it's going to be 40,000, 50,000, 60,000. what that means most importantly is this right here. 0.5%, that's recount territory. you get outside of that. it changes the dynamic. that's where things are headed right now. >> 0.5 is a number to watch. this is 28,000. 44,000 is what, phil? it's the margin that donald trump won pennsylvania by in 2016. keep that in mind. we could pass that at some point this morning. alisyn? >> we're standing by for all of that. here to discuss more is cnn analyst laura coates. she's also a former attorney in the voting rights section at the justice department. that seems to come in handy right now, laura. so you're the perfect person to talk to. in your opinion from this slew of lawsuits that we've seen come

from the trump campaign, do any have merit, and in particular, the one that justice aledo has ruled on in terms of the ballots that were postmarked by election day in pennsylvania but received in the three days after? >> not a one is going to have any meaningful impact on the election results unless for some reason the margin of victory for the person who is presumed to win pennsylvania is somehow going to be impacted by the number of segregated ballots, the ones that came in after election day until the deadline of friday. if that narrow opportunity for those particular votes will actually sway the election, then it could have an impact. otherwise we're talking about the supreme court, alisyn, weighing in to figure out in the long run whether the pennsylvania supreme court or any supreme court can extend a deadline theoretic will i when the state legislator said you could not. that's what they could look at. that's the narrow sort of

question the supreme court could be looking at. not about who won the election, but whether there was somebody who usurped the authority at the time, manner, and place of electi elections. >> we're hearing president trump sun happy with his legal team, wants them to be more aggressive or thinks they're unprepared. do you know what the problem is? >> the problem is everyone hates their lawyers when they have no chance of winning because the case just doesn't have the evidentiary support. a lot of what president trump has been talking about is the idea of drawing a conclusion and hoping to work backward to somehow find an iota of evidence, but we're talking about election-related matters. you actually have to gather that evidence of whatever fraud you are articulating, actual specific evidence about whether there's a clerical error, mismanaged ballots. those are things you get in real time. it's very hard to go back and try to conjure up or figure out what happened after the fact. you can't have a backward

approach. if he has none of those so far, we have seen nothing about that. also you have a breadth of cases, a breadth of states. we're focusing on pennsylvania because of the very high electoral vote count. he's filed cases in four different states. the amount of financial investment, legal expertise, and then you also fall short on evidence, this is a huge uphill battle that, frankly, may be too much to overcome. >> you need everyday in court. let me write that down. that's very important. >> evidence, e-v-i-d-e-n-c-e. >> that's fascinating. laura, what about the larger issue, and that s do these lawsuits and recounts gum up the works in terms of transition? if joe biden wins, does all of this kind of postpone or somehow mess up the transition?

>> here's how it could. if for some reason there was this essentially battled electoral count and you had some instance where perhaps you had two different slates of electors who were going to put their electoral college votes to separate candidates, dueling elections, only some sort, that could delay if they somehow missed the deadline by which you have these electors already in place. but realistically, that's something that's down the road and one you shouldn't focus on yet, and here's why. all about the numbers, basic addition is where we're at now, the tab lag. there's a safe harbor, period, for each of the states where if they certificate phi their elections in time per a particular deadline, they can't be legally challenged after that. that's why every single state is racing right now to get to that certification period so they can avoid the idea of maybe the

house having to decide as opposed to electoral college members. >> if there's something to worry about on the horizon, i'll worry about it, laura. thank you for explaining it to us and putting it into great context for us. >> thank you. up next, we're live at biden headquarters with a look at the thinking inside that campaign and what we may hear from the candidate today.

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you talk to the campaign and those closest to him, they think this is a done deal. they think it's a matter of time before they get over the 270 threshold, and, you know, when we listen to biden give his speech here in wilmington last night, he basically walked right up to the line declaring victory without saying those words. he said, look, the numbers do not lie. i believe this race is going to be called for me. he says he believes he's going to win states like arizona, georgia, and pennsylvania, all states where we are still waiting for the counts to be finished, and an important part of that speech was him addressing what is likely going to be one of his biggest challenges if he is, in fact, elected, and that is bringing the country together. he said there's a clear distinction between his opponents and enemies. here he is. >> we may be opponents, but we're not enemies. we're americans. no matter who you voted for, i'm certain of one thing. the vast majority of the 150

million americans who voted, they want to get the vitriol out of our politics. we're certainly not going to agree on a lot of issues, but at least we can agree to be civil with one another. >> reporter: now, even as the campaign is feeling confident that they're going to win doesn't mean that there isn't a level of impatience. biden also said in that speech last night he gets that it's a little numbing to watch the tv news trickle in. i think this is clear in talking to folks around him. look behind me. the stage has been set up for a little while. clearly this is a campaign eager to make that victory speech. i will also finally note one thing the former vice president said is he wants to get to work even before this race is officially called. and advisers say one of those things that he'll continue to monitor is the covid-19 pandemic, that regardless of where we are in the vote

counting process, this is something he is going to be looking at and monitoring very closely. alisyn. >> thank you for all of that, mj. john, you bring them in. >> i'll bring them in. david, i want to start with you here. why? you know, 20 years or so ago, you and i were covering george w. bush during a recount which was a much different circumstance. there was uncertainty in that. right now it's underthere won't be uncertainty. what is similar is joe biden is doing something we saw george w. bush do, which is to begin acting like a president right away, and it seems to me this has two purposes. one, it's helpful in this time of electoral uncertainty. it gives people confidence in the vote progress says, but also it lays the groundwork for if and when you become president.

what do you see? >> well, biden has a unique circumstance that george w. bush did not at that time. that is there is a crisis bearing down on the country, or facing the country, which is the pandemic and the economy. think about bill clinton in 1992 who told ted koppel during the wee hours of the morning, i'm going to laser focus on the economy. biden has to do it today. he has to hit the ground running when it comes to fighting the virus and dealing with the economy. the needle that i think george w. bush was trying to thread at that time was he had a house divided, right? a deeply divided polarized country. that's what biden has now. this is not a sweeping mandate, but he has -- he's on the cusp of defeating a president after only one term, which is significant. you remember, john, the advice of vice president cheney, which i think is also in vice president biden's ear, you move forward, you move forward fast, you don't pay attention to the

division, you start leading. again, with the pandemic and the economy, i think biden can do it in a very fast and resolute way. >> here's the problem, margaret. we've got two months. if biden wins, we have two months, and yesterday was the highest number of case count yet. 125,000 people in this country. the chief of staff in the white house, mark meadows, has tested positive. he's in a high risk group. 61-year-old man. we can't wait for those two months. president trump, we haven't heard from him or seen him in more than 24 hours. he's not tackling this. it's just getting worse. >> yeah. well, good morning, alisyn. look. i think -- you heard from vice president biden last night. one of the passages that stuck out to me is when he said he had a mandate to govern and to begin moving forward. you can argue whether or not a race this razor thin is a main

date from the electoral college. certainly from the popular vote it will be. the reason he's doing that is to lay the groundwork for the transition that has to begin immediately, and we already know that he is in conversations on a regular basis with the former surgeon general, with folks like david kessler and zeke emmanuel who we have known for many years dating back to the clinton administration, that there is app assembly advising him on coronavirus matters. that's going to be number one. he'll be moving forward, assuming this race is called the way we all expect it to be called in the coming hours or days mo days, moved forward on cabinet appointments. as you said, coronavirus is priority number one because by the time of the inauguration, we know the numbers could have

doubled. experts think thanksgiving may be a tipping point or reflection point for a quick rise in infections and whatever comes with that and that the pandemic and the problems that have expanded greatly under this administration, the bill that's going to come dube tbe by the n inauguration will be significant. the way the two teams work together, if it is president-elect biden, will the administration play nice with the transition, will they do the kind of information sharing, laying the groundwork for a smooth transition of government. those are real questions at this point. >> and that's a critical point. alisyn, i think you're onto it. we don't know what we're in for, but we can imagine with president trump, which is no peaceful transfer of power in this sense. i don't mean calling for violence. i mean will he cooperate with the shadow government with a government that is in transition?

will he block their efforts? will he have biden over? will he confer on anything? will he go to the inauguration? we don't know. knowing where president trump's head appears to be, we can assume there won't. it could be a volatile couple of months in dealing with the pandemic and also the economy. >> just to build on that for a second, it's also hard to imagine. not only not knowing it, it's hard to imagine that level of cooperation after this campaign. >> this campaign? after his life, at any point in his life. this is just how he behaviors. >> i can see people underneath him -- i can see people underneath him cooperating, unless he actively blocks it because there's a lot of levels at which that cooperation happens, but i could certainly see him being an impediment. >> there's every reason to believe the apparatus of the government and the transition that snaps into place will continue to do so whatever nonsense you hear from the president of the united states.

the impact is on the american people. we've had more than a thousand new deaths reporting four days in a row for the first time in a very long time. there's one issue about the issue of mandate and margins here, i think people need to know. joe biden is on the path to within by the same number of votes president trump won four years ago. 306 electoral votes is more than george w. bush got, jimmy carter, a little less than barack obama got. in terms of the popular marginal vote, several had well less than the 4% or so that joe biden has right now that could keep growing. that's in the popular vote there. and you alluded to this before, david. the mandate you have is the mandate you take a lot of times when you come into office. >> i agree with that. and i think here's another way go underline that.

if biden wins, you know, trump's a one-term president. it's very difficult to defeat a one-term president. the only thing that argues against that, look, there was a lot of energy, we know it, in the media, among pollsters, in the democratic party that they were going to run trump out of town and this would be a walloping. it's not. it's a close race. there maybe b more distance and i take your path. we're on the path to have a divided government. the democrats have lost house seats. i don't think as biden you tiptoe into office. i think any president stands up and leads and takes the american people with him or her to where the country needs to go. that's what leadership is, and he tries to build consensus. this is a tough political environmental to do that and it has been since 2000 when we covered that tight race. >> margaret talev, david

gregory, thank you so much. >> i've lost all sense of time. >> it is saturday. >> are you sure? >> ballot counting has resumed in pennsylvania. joe biden is edging closer to victory. stand by. we're going to take you to pennsylvania, and we're going to look at the record-breaking -- we've been talking about this -- the record-breaking popular vote. no candidate has received 70% of the vote. stay with us. it's time for theraflu hot liquid medicine. powerful relief so you can restore and recover. theraflu hot beats cold. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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welcome back to cnn's special live coverage. let's take a look at two of the states that are very close. first in the state of nevada, joe biden has the lead. 100,000 votes left to count, most from clark county, which has been leaning heavily

democratic. the state of arizona, 11 electoral votes. joe biden with a 29,000-vote lead. that vote has been shrinking. donald trump needs more. he hasn't been getting that. still, we're watching very closely. let's go over to phil mattingly at the magic wall to understand. let me preface it by saying it doesn't matter. because of the constitution and founding fathers, the popular vote, but it has, i think, some moral significance. >> i'll put it this way. i spend the vast majority of my time digging into each state and each county and then you look up at mary key pa or allegheny or never else and you look here. the popular vote right now, the turnout you've seen, it started with the early vote. currently where we stand at more

than 144 million votes that have been cast, and we are still 8% outstanding. that is going to grow. it's going to grow exponentially over the course of the coming days and weeks as the count is finalized. you look at joe biden's popular vote count lead. more than 4.2 million votes he's currently ahead of donald trump, 50 preside 50.5% to 47.4%. go back to 2016. nowhere near that. nowhere near that. again, still 8%, 7%, still outstanding. go back to 2012. president obama versus mitt romney, 125 million. 20 2008, which was a big turnout at least for modern era, still surpassed it's nor mussily. you look at the top line, going back to 2020, no individual in the country has gotten more votes than vice president biden

in a presidential election. and another element, no one has gotten more votes. it's this year, this moment, this willingness to participate that's astounding. >> you know what? good on him, good on him, good on you. this is an election where people came out to participate. i do want to point out this margin here, 4.1 million. it's going to grow. a lot of remaining voters in california, joe biden has the potential to grow his popular lead to north of 5 million, which would be more than barack obama in 2012. bill clinton in '92 was 5.8 million. not impossible that joe biden gets there. when you think of the size of the victory from a national sense, it could be pretty big. >> no question about it. one other quick fact to go back to turnout, there's a very, very real possibility that the turnout could surpass the modern era, which was 1960, which is --

real quick. i know we're out of time. on the path right now to pass that. we've seen several cycles where turnout has gone down. something about 2020, something about everything going on in our country, in the world, it's a good thing. >> thank you. up next, how the republican party is responding to president trump's baseless claims of election fraud. we're joined by a former republican congressman from pennsylvania next.

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welcome back to cnn's special live coverage. they have resuchled counting ballots in philadelphia, in the state of pennsylvania. this is where things stand there. joe biden leads by 28,000, almost 29,000 votes. 20 electoral votes up for grabs. if joe biden wins pennsylvania, he will be the president-elect of the united states. much of the voting, many of the ballots come from largely democratic areas. we're waiting for some results over the next several minutes. alisyn? >> let's bring in charlie dent, former congressman from pennsylvania. congressman, what's taking so long in your home state? >> hey, alisyn. i'll tell you what's taking so long. the reason why -- this is the first time pennsylvania ever did absentee voting without excuses, so the volume is enormous because of the pandemic.

the legislature passed the law prior to the pandemic, and so, of course -- and then there was no authority for the counties to start -- to count those votes until election day. and in pennsylvania, put it in perspective. there are nearly 13 million residents in pennsylvania, and there are 3.1 million requests for absentee ballots and over 3.5 million were actually returns. it was a 3-1 ratio, democrat to republican. they're recounting. there's nothing nefarious going on here. it's the first time, and they're getting through it. >> charlie, i want to point out what we're seeing on the other side of the screen. this is the live shot of the counting that's going on. i don't want to malign the counters. they're doing god's work, okay, but clearly they're on a break right now. they have not started because the entire room appears to be empty. i know they're tired. they've been at this for days. but it doesn't look like much is happening at this exact moment.

>> yeah. well, i'll tell you what. i'm sitting about three or four blocks from where they're actually counting. i'll go over there and wake them up, i guess. >> thank you. >> they're going to get through it. we're down near the end. by the way, pennsylvania, take it to the bank. joe biden is going to win pennsylvania conservatively by at least 50,000 votes, maybe 100,000. this game is over. it's done. and people just -- i know the networks have to be very cautious and conservative about calling it. i can tell you this outcome is not going to change. >> in the meantime, charlie, people, supporters of president trump and his surrogates really are casting as spurgss persions. in fairness philly does have a history of some malfeasance, and so what do you say to all of that? >> it is true. there have been problems in

philadelphia over the years. i lived it in the 1990s when a state rep active was ejected for massive voter fraud. i remember it. but the counting that's going on today, it's not just philadelphia. my home county, lehigh county, i voted by mail. my count wasn't voted until thursday. all of these counties are slower than we'd like because, again, they couldn't start counting until election day, and the general assembly and the governor couldn't reach an agreement. they didn't allow the county workers to start counting prior to the election. they should have given them a week or twoen days. i think there was a deliberate strategy by some to have this situation where we knew that duchs with going s wits wit ss going to come out with the advantage to watch it's van rate with the absentees. by the way, the fact that donald trump suppressed his own vote by

telling voters not to even gauge in mail-in voting or absentee voting, he harmed his own campaign. >> so, charlie, you think he would have gotten more votes had he encouraged people to mail in votes? you think not enough people showed up on election day? >> it may circulate hurt him. in the common belt of pennsylvania, republicans have been historically better at absentee voting than democrats. they have a very aggressive program. that's how i voted, by absentee. they sent me my application, the whole family. they're very good at it. donald trump is out there bad mouthing mail-in voting and he suppressed it. it may have hurt him. i can't count how many. but it hurt republican candidates up and down. i think it's stupid. many were mortified when the president trump went off on this issue of mail-in voting.

>> congressman dent, thank you for being with us. let us know when wow yauch three blocks away to see what they're doing. >> i'll crack the whip. up next, an election worker in georgia has been forced into hiding after a viral video falsely suggests that he tossed out a ballot. we're live in atlanta, as the vote count there is almost complete. find your rhythm. your happy place. find your breaking point. then break it. every emergen-c gives you a potent blend of nutrients so you can emerge your best with emergen-c. yoat nature's way, that startsn with quality ingredients. like our sambucus - made from elderberries grown and picked at their prime. choose the way to quality immune support,

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an election worker in georgia has been forced to go into hiding after a viral video falsely accused of wrongdoing. cnn's nick valencia is live for

us in atlanta. so what happened here, nick? >> reporter: alisyn, the unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud have found their way to social media. after the fulton county votes were being processed, it's been viewed millions of times and it falsely accused this poll worker of throwing away a ballot. rick barron, the director here in fulton county called the claims shameful. and set they're flat-out dangerous. it shows a young man working at a ballot cutting machine where the outside envelope separates the inside envelope of a mail-in ballot. you do see him at one point crumble up a piece of paper. it's not a ballot vote, a list of instructions where people return their absentee or mail-in votes. that poll worker is now in hiding. he's not staying at home, but

staying with friends, according to rick barron, and his personal information, including his license plate is now public. security -- there's discussions to provide him security. i mentioned, alisyn, it's very dangerous, these false accusations floating around the internet. >> that's a nightmare, nick. thank you for reporting that. back to you, john. they are resumed counting in the commonwealth of pennsylvania. if joe biden wins pennsylvania, he wins the presidency. we are expecting more results in a few minutes. stick around. .. ...so we can spend a bit today, knowing we're prepared for tomorrow. wow, do you think you overdid it maybe? overdid what? well planned, well invested, well protected. voya. be confident to and through retirement.

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♪ john berman alongside alisyn

camerota. welcome to our viewers in the united states and all around the world. so, after three days, five hours and about 12 seconds or so on this roller coaster, very soon the united states is likely to have a new president-elect. >> as joe biden's lead over president trump continues to grow in the key states of pennsylvania and georgia, so do his chances of claiming victory by the end of today. former vice president joe biden is pushing unity and patience, while president trump in his defiance and his legal team vows to keep playing until the whistle blows. >> biden with 253 votes, the president, 213. biden is one state away from the magic number and that's where we begin with a cnn key race alert. these are the states that hang in the balance right now. none more important than pennsylvania, with 20 electoral votes. in the commonwealth, joe biden

leads by nearly 29,000 votes. maybe more than 100,000 ballots left to count between mail-in and provisional. most of it comes from heavily democratic leaning areas. joe biden has been building his margin there over the last several hours. in georgia, joe biden leads by just 7,000 votes. 16 electoral votes up for grabs. joe biden has actually expanded his lead overnight. went from 4,000 to 7,000 while were you sleeping. still very much in recount territory. nevertheless, an area where joe biden is expanding. the state of arizona, a very different state with 11 electoral votes up for grabs. joe biden's lead is shrinking. leading by 29,000 votes. the republicans will tell you that the president needs 60% of the overall vote to overtake joe biden. he hasn't been getting that. still, we expect an update.

finally, nevada, six electoral votes, joe biden ahead by 22,000. he's expanding his lead. what do we know about the remaining vote, most of it comes from clark county which is democratic. again, biden expected in all likelihood to grow his lead in nevada as the day continues. let's take a look at the nap overall right now. as we sit here this morning, joe biden, 253 electoral votes. donald trump with 213. the states in white there, many more paths for joe biden to get to 270. an donald trump, the clearest path, the path that they've started counting and still counting this morning is in the commonwealth of pennsylvania. that's where we'll begin with phil mattingly at the magic wall, 20 electoral votes, joe biden wins, he's the president-elect. what are we seeing? >> it's the big outstanding electoral prize. ed biten campaign is pretty clear they feel confident where pennsylvania is going. that it will end up in their tally soon, rather than later, we'll see about that.

i'll tell you why, they look to be on track and they don't seem to be wrong where they look through the votes outstanding. john said shy of 100,000 mail-in votes outstanding. it's where the mail-in ballots have gone and where they are located that does give the confidence to the biden campaign. as it currently stands, joe biden 29,000 votes ahead of donald trump. that's a lead. that's a complete reversal from 48 hours ago when donald trump was ahead by nearly 500,000 votes. what changed? well, they started counting mail-in ballots which they were not allowed to count by a state law until after election day votes were talltallied. the mail-in ballots even bigger for vice president biden. where it's still outstanding right now, the biggest strongholds for democrats. southeastern pennsylvania, most notably, the city of philadelphia. 20,000 to 25,000 ballots outstanding. when you take a look at the margin in philadelphia it gives you a sense of what might be

coming in, joe biden at 88.8%. and when you fact in mail-in ballots, the margin is higher. as new batches come in. you factor that in, you push out through the other blue strongholds here. we go to allegheny. we were just talking to an allegheny county official, home of pittsburgh. said there's about 20,000 mail-in ballots left that we're tallying. those are going 80/20% as well. making it clear when it comes to the outstanding mail-in ballots, joe biden has a serious advantage not just in strongholds but conservative counties as well. mail-in ballots leaning towards democrats not just in philadelphia, not just in pittsburgh, but in ruby red counties that president trump turned out voters. he turned them out election day. >> we just spoke to rich fitzgerald, county executive for

allegheny county, telling us 70,000 provisionals. not impossible for joe biden to pad his margin by 20,000 votes in this county alone. now, phil, if we can take 45 seconds to a minute talk about provisional ballots because i think this threw some people for a loop starting yesterday afternoon. and part of the reason why there hasn't been an official call yet. there may be 80,000 to 100,000 provisional ballots left in pennsylvania. is it exactly clear which way they will lean? more like mail ballots? or in-person ballots? we have a little sense of erie county. can you explain. >> yeah, we'll pull up erie county. joe biden is on the bath path t flipping it back. for provisional ballots in erie county have been counted, 125 for president trump, 105 for joe biden. so, generally, splitting them about half and half. generally coming in line with

the margin. erie is a battle ground county. it goes back and forth. when you look what's outstandings in provisionals, philadelphia has about 20%. based on what happened in erie and traditional ballots you're going to see a similar margin to what each county has and sets an expectation based on historical precedence and erie. so if erie is splitting 50/50 in range. philadelphia has a quarter out and they're splitting 80/20 at this point in time. are provisionals goes to change the game given where things stand? and where they're about to stand as more absentee ballots come in? no, instead, it's likely that the absentee ballots grow that lead, 10,000, 20,000, 30,000, and provisionals for joe biden too. >> grow it less, but grow it nevertheless. let's take a look at georgia. i think this actually tells a little similar story. joe biden's lead grew in georgia overnight. it went from 4,000 to 7,000.

not a huge number, but actually a pretty big percentage count. and every vote counts when it's that close. when it came for fulton county? >> provisional. a mix, heavily democratic and also provisional ballots as well. why does that matter? well, you look at the margin in fulton county, again, largest county in the state of georgia. home of atlanta, democratic stronghold, 76.6 to 72.2%. mostly matched up with this marcin. again, sticking with it doesn't mean they're going to necessarily move away. the counties are the same. residents the same. maybe a different precinct, maybe went to a wrong precinct, but the provisional lines up with what we see on marge margi. when you get a batch of 3,000,

4,000 votes standing at the magic wall, it's like christmas. with provisionals coming in, 14,000 outstanding right now, some military and overseas votes waiting to come in as well. this margin matters a lot. a lot. going from 4,000 to 7,000 matters a lot. likely, almost certainly going into a recount. and a recount is not a place where you see 2,000, 3,000, 4,000 votes change. that would be a catastrophic failure to a degree on this level that you just don't see. so every vote that joe biden adds to his total, every vote gives him more of a cushion for that likelihood that jobe biden pu pulls on for georgia. >> i can't think of a time they've changed thousands. as for christmas, new ballots, we could get a keystone christmas, sometime over the next several hours, maybe minutes. we are expecting more votes in pennsylvania. they're counting again in philadelphia.

alisyn. >> christmas in november. we like it. we'll see what happens over the next few hours, guys. let's go to pennsylvania, where more than 80,000 we're told mail-in ballots are to be counted. cnn's kate bolduan is in philadelphia. what's the situation, kate? >> reporter: hey, there, alisyn, it's not a question of whether they're counting right now, it's why is it taking so long to finish? the short answer is the group of ballots that they're dealing with here in philadelphia, that they're working with, they require extra attention. they require more reviereview. what they call them here at the convention center. they call them problem child ballots. that's what they say. there are 20,000 that they need to wade through. overnight, there are 60 workers we're told in the convention center prepping the ballots for review. we're told that part of that includes grouping those problem child ballots into buckets, we could call them, to address a specific issue at hand.

they are -- we are told that they are starting that work, starting that review, they should be started right now, if they're keeping with the schedule that they have laid out. they're also looking at 18,000 provisional ballots that they have not gone through yet. and we're told that they're not likely to be going to those until next week. starting with those on monday. so, the entire focus here, in this massive cavernous warehouse space that they're working with here in philadelphia, the entire focus is getting through those some 20,000 some mail-in ballots that are requiring special attention to address issues that could be a range of variety of things. so, we are told there are going to be updates coming today. but how soon and how many, there is not clarity on that quite yet, alisyn. >> okay. we will try to get some answers for you and the viewers and for all of us. thank you very much, kate. because joining us now is the lieutenant governor of pennsylvania john fetterman. lieutenant governor, thanks so much.

i know it's a busy day, thank you for being with us. >> sure. >> so, help us set our expectations, do you have any sense of when the ballots will all be counted in pennsylvania? >> well, i mean, the count's ongoing. but there isn't any good news for the president's campaign anywhere in the pockets of votes that remain. philadelphia is going to drop a big bundle, at some point this morning. allegheny county's going to have some, as well, too. and those trend heavily in the vice president's favor. so, you know, my advice to the president's legal team on the ground here in pennsylvania, not to buy any green bananas because i don't think this is going to be much longer. >> wow. that does give us a sense of the time line. is today the day that pennsylvania pushing joe biden over the top? >> i can't say with any certainty, but i, quite frankly, are unsure why mathematically we're not already there. if you just look at where these votes are coming from.

and the history of how these votes break. you're talking, 75%, 80% and higher coming out of philadelphia. even if you give a 50/50 break, that doesn't gain the president any ground. and the vice president's already about 30,000 up. he's going to go up even more when those philly ballots drop. i want to emphasize, these are all legal ballots that can't be touched by any supreme court decision. and at this point, you have this sad strategy of trying to appeal these so-called late ballots that arrive after election night at 8:00 p.m. through friday. and you're talking 2,000, maybe 3,000 votes all across pennsylvania. it's an insequential part of ballots. they to interrupt alito friday night for that kind of ruling. that exemplifies that

desperation, i would urge them to accept math. >> there's more than the ballots that you're talking about, there's a slew of them in pennsylvania. are you saying any don't have merit? >> well, name one that hasn't been a longshot or irrelevant to the task at hand of counting these ballots that are illegally received. >> in addition, to the legal challenges that, as you say, are being shot down left and right, another thing that republicans seem to be doing is criticizing your secretary of state and saying that this could all have gone much more easily. "philadelphia inquirer" reports state jake coreman accused kathy brookvar of false results. >> no, that's categorically

false. leader korman also said yesterday there was no evidence of any fraud occurring in pennsylvania, too, as the top republican in pennsylvania. furthermore, this delay can be laid squarely at the feet of the pennsylvania gop who would not grant us even a 24-hour window to begin precanvassing -- or 48 hours. and this would have avoided all of this. that would already been over if they simply allowed that. they orchestrated this long, dragged-out process, and here we are. at the end of the day, it's not going to go well. i would just urge the trump campaign to just embrace math. and allow this country to move on. >> well, on that note, it doesn't seem to be in president trump's dna to admit defeat, at least not what we've seen in terms of his behavior in the white house over the past four years. what do you think on that higher level, if the president refuses to concede, if biden wins? >> all i know is that the math

on the ground in pennsylvania is that the u-haul truck to the trump presidency at this point. you know, it's going to end it. and i would just urge at this point that we take up a collective understanding of where this is going in pennsylvania. you look at the ballot breakdown. you look at the trends, and you just look at the simple fact that there's no path. and at this point, we need to start bringing this country together and moving forward. >> and what do you think about what joe biden's tone has been thus far when he's come out to speak? >> absolutely. joe biden's handling it perfectly. that's my point. but i am just stating the reality here, is that there's an optimal level of cautiousness. and we don't want to get in front of anything. but when we're over 30,000 votes and climbing from a giant pool of mail-in ballots that break heavily to the point of 75%, 80%

or more that are going to be added to this total, there just isn't a path mathematically. there isn't a enchanted group of trump voters that haven't weighed in yet. i know this to be true. all they're doing is hurling the smears and baseless allegations that's undermining the democratic process, not only in pennsylvania, but in the nation. we need to just come to a final understanding that the numbers aren't going to change. they haven't changed. everything in this primary, in pennsylvania, has played out exactly as everybody would say, with the numbers and the ballots on the ground. >> look, i mean, obviously, cnn's decision desk exercising caution and looking at all of the algorithm, and plugging in the numbers and their models and everything and trying to proceed cautiously. but you're saying, if it were up to you, you'd call it right now? >> what i'm trying to say is, i

don't -- no matter how generous of a perspective you have towards giving trump the benefit of the doubt, where are these votes coming from? where is this uncertainty lie? and i just also want to talk about provisional ballots. i think the majority of them are going to be individuals that choice to spoil their mail-in ballot, for whatever reason, they wanted to vote in person or they didn't trust the underlying integrity of the mail-in process because there was a lot of republican misinformation in campaigning. at the end of the day, those are going to, i suspect, break at even a small margin in the vice president's favor as well, too. >> lieutenant governor john fetterman, we always appreciate talking to you. thank you very much. >> thank you. let's go back to john. major developments overnight, coronavirus cases reaching astronomical new records in the united states. and that number now includes the white house chief of staff. stay tuned, as our special live

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the counting has resumed in philadelphia this morning. in the meantime, as we await news from there, the country is setting and then breaking new records when it comes to coronavirus cases. friday alone, the u.s. added more than 126,000 new coronavirus cases. that is the single highest number of cases in one day since the pandemic began. the country also saw four straight days of more than 1,000 deaths this week. 16 states are reporting record high hospitalizations. and former fda commissioner scott gottlieb warned that cases are likely to explode in the coming weeks. >> and also, john, we learned overnight that the white house chief of staff mark meadows has tested positive for the virus. cnn's ryan nobles joins us from washington. do we know how he got sick? who he was around, things like

that? >> reporter: we don't know the specifics of when the chief of staff contracted the illness in part, we're told he wants to keep it a secret. he did not want it to get out, though the white house has said they've done extensive contact tracing relation to who was in the white house. but if you look at where he has been in public or behaved in public over the past week, you can see he was not taking all that many precautions to stop the spread of the coronavirus. on election night, he was here at the white house, at the election night party, not wearing a mask. he has been seen at numerous trump rallies, leading up to election day. fist-bumping trump supporters without a mask on. he was also at the trump headquarters on the day of the electric, in close contact with many staffers, also not wearing a mask. and meadows is someone if rarely ever wears a mask. and sometimes gets annoyed by reporters why they ask him why he's not wearing a mask or ask him to wear a mask.

sources also say over the past week, the chief of staff has been in and out of the white house residence. he's been in and out of the west wing as well. we don't know exactly how he's behaving at this stage, after this coronavirus diagnosis. we just know up until this point, at least, when he learned he had the coronavirus hes not being very responsible. also i should point out we haven't heard very much from president trump as it relates to the election over the past 24 to 48 hours. he's up and tweeting this morning. he's again putting out a number of baseless claims about the vote count. its accuracy, trying to undermine this process. i won't get into did the details because a lot of the claims are without merit. it just goes to show you the psyche of president trump right now as the votes come in. it doesn't look like he's anywhere in the ballpark considering conceding to vice president joe biden. >> as we say, ryan, it's not up to him. it's up to the american people. right now, the will of the american people is being felt. we are counting the votes as we

speak. thank you for being with us. in philadelphia, the counting has resumed this morning. we're waiting to get an update from pennsylvania. we have a sense of the shape of what the ballots look like. that's next. is not the same. it's our sharpest ever, and while some other companies would charge more for something new, we don't. because why be like everyone else? harry's. not the same.

welcome back to cnn's special live coverage. an update on two crucial states. first, the state of nevada. six electoral votes, joe biden with a 22,000 vote lead. more than 100,000 votes remaining, most from heavily democratic areas. many people think joe biden's lead will expand there. arizona, a bit of a different story, joe biden leading by 29,000 votes. 11 electoral votes up for grabs. biden's lead has been shrinking in arizona, though republicans in that state will tell you not by enough, at least not yet, for

president trump to overtake joe biden. still, we're watching it very closely. alisyn. >> john, arizona will be working through the weekend to try to get through the more than 200,000 ballots that we're told remain to be counted. cnn's bill weir is there in phoenix. so, bill, give us a status report, what are you hearing? >> reporter: well, alisyn, we're hearing that the next big vote dump here is a couple hours out of the maricopa recorder's office here. what we're seeing the metaphor that i've been using, if joe biden's lead is a big boulder, president trump has been chipping away with it with hammers when what he really needs is dynamite to below it up. this little gain doesn't seem enough as they winnow down the last votes in the state. yesterday, president trump picked up about 7,000 votes in the most populous county in arizona to bring him within 30,000.

as you look around, navajo, pima, cochise, these little trickles, advantage in these dumps, for president trump. even in yavapai, mccain country, went predominantly for trump but not enough to push him over. you got to wonder what the mccain family thinking about that. the secretary of state told us 183,000 votes left. about 93,000 are here. 47,000 of those ballots are provisional ballots, those are folks that didn't have the right address on their driver's license. they have a week to come back and be counted. not all of the votes will be counted. people won't follow through for whatever reason. the window of opportunity for president trump is narrowing. what's interesting, a lot of republican state officials refuse to say, in a press

conference yesterday, thats there any sort of, you know, shenanigans going on. they refuse to toe that line. you're hearing from some trump loyalists that things are fishy. as governor ducey of arizona promised the president, we can do it efficiently. we can run an election in a pandemic and get it done. they're staying away from charges of election fraud. alisyn, john. >> good to hear. very good to hear. bill weir, thank you for all of those updated numbers for us. let's go back to john. >> let me just say, people need to stick with cnn all day long, if for no other reason than to see bill weir do math. in the meantime, let's go to kristen holmes in the voting desk. phil brought up provisional ballots. this has been a main issue in pennsylvania. help us understand what these are and what they mean? >> yeah, people have been encouraged to be patient.

one of the great things about the election, it gives an opportunity to learn things that happen literally in every election. one of them is provisional ballots. right now, in pennsylvania, there are 101,000 provisional ballots. big deal because this is, of course, a critical swing state. so what exactly does that mean. essentially it's a ballot that is cast when the eligibility of the voter comes into question. why would that come into question? it can be something incredibly simple. you forgot your i.d. at home. your mail-in ballot was rejected. you ordered an absentee ballot, when you get there, they don't have it but supposed to. and they cast your ballot and put it to aside. here's the kind of catch to a provisional ballot. i talked to an official in erie county, pennsylvania. i asked him how long does it take to actually count a provisional ballot. he told me one to 20 minutes per ballot. the reason being, what you have to do, what the election

officials have to do is go into the system and find out if you're actually eligible. in a place like pennsylvania. they have a statewide system. they enter the information they know. sometimes, there's a catch. your name could be spelled a little differently in the record which means they have to spend more time finding that record and then correcting it and making sure you're eligible to vote. so, this, again, is just another factor that's playing into this election. and something that election officials are encouraging people to remain patient as they start to go through these. they have seven days to count the provisional ballots. >> one to 20 minutes per ballot, 85,000 ballots in pennsylvania could lead to 85,000 minutes, sounds like the worst song yet from rent. kristen holmes, thank you for explaining the votes in play. this morning, the president is lying, he's awake and lying about the election.

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all right. welcome back to cnn's special live coverage. 8:40 a.m. on the east coast. we know the president is awake and he is live. he's on social media saying things that are simply not true about the election and electoral process. joining us to discuss the commissioner of the federal election commission ellen weintraub.

commissioner, thanks for being with us. i'm not going to read the president's tweet. it's just false, an outright lie. i want to ask you the other side of the question, based on what you've seen, how has the process worked so far? how have our systems held up? >> well, actually, it's been quite remarkable. i, and many other people, were so concerned about how we were going to run this election during a pandemic. and state and local officials and poll workers throughout the country really stepped up. and there have been very few complaints about how this election was run. very few substantiated complaints, let me put it that way. there is no evidence of any kind of voter fraud. there is no evidence of illegal votes being don't have to take my word for it, because people throughout the country, nonpartisan election experts have come out and handled this election. and how it was run. if you want to look at the state of pennsylvania, which the president seems to be focused

on, senator tumi has come out and said he's seen no evidence of fraud there. the republican leader of the state senate there has said he's seen no evidence of fraud. they would know. they're on the ground. they're there in pennsylvania. and there really has been no evidence of fraud. none of the complaints have attached any evidence of fraud. really, we should feel very proud of ourselves we had record turnout and people did care about this election, they turned out in higher than any election in the last 120 years. it was really all kind of amazing. we should all feel really good about this, when the pandemic is over, thank a poll worker, thank a local election official. >> wow, it has really revealed actually the painstaking work that these election vote counters are doing. we just had our reporter kristen holmes saying some of these provisional ballots can take between one and 20 minutes

that's the estimate of how long it takes to count it. because they have to compare the signatures, sometimes, they have to look for whatever the problem was. so, i guess, commissioner, my question is, yes, we've done really well, remarkably. but is there some way to streamline this for the future? have we learned some lessons this time? >> well, one thing that we could do, which some states have done and other states for reasons unknown only to their state legislature is refused to do is we could start processing mail-in ballots earlier. the states that have the most experience with absentee ballots do this. as the mail-in ballots come in, they start processing them. so you don't have on election day, in addition to having to run the in-person election, now, you've got to allocate staff to start counting the millions of ballots that have been sitting there just waiting to be processed. so, that, i think, would be the number one recommendation to try and streamline the system going forward.

i also think, and this really doesn't go so much to streamlining as to access, there are a lot of steps that states could take to make voting more accessible. because there were still people who had trouble having access to the polls, particularly in a pandemic. there were lines that were too long. there were obstacles that were placed in the way of people registering easily. and then voting easily. and there are solid proposals on the table, in congress, for making these processes better. and they should adopt them. >> just to be clear, this is not a distraction we were talking about about legislature allowing votes to be cast before 8:00 p.m. on tuesday night. pennsylvania republicans blocked, blocked efforts to have that state begin counting the ballots that had been in earlier. and now, we're see the results. we're waiting on pennsylvania. pennsylvania republicans made this choice. it was an affirmative decision by them to put us in a situation where in now. commissioner, i do want to ask

you about the legal challenges to certain ballots that have been filed around the country. save one case, which is a case dealing with ballots that have arrived in pennsylvania after the polls closed on tuesday night which are being segregated. i'm not aware of any lawsuit that deals with a class of ballots or a large group of ballots. you're talking about individual ballots here or there. is there anything out there that even in some conceivable world could overturn thousands and thousands of ballots in any state, any lawsuits? >> no, the lawsuits seem to be for the most part going after a few ballots here and a few ballots there. and given the margins there does not look like anything could affect the outcome. before i was on the fec, in private practice, i did recount work. really, if the margin is more than a few hundred votes, recount lawyers know that you're not able to flip the election.

so, a notion that a few dozen votes here or there could make a difference, it's just not going to happen. >> ellen wieintraubweintraub, t for helping us understand this. appreciate your time. >> thank you, my pleasure. all right. with the election results trending in joe biden's favor, many of you asking why hasn't the case will be called yet? we're going to explain, next.

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okay, folks, we know that when you look at the numbers on your screen, you can clearly see that joe biden is leading in those four key battleground states. and so many of you are asking why, cnn, why have you not called any of these states for joe biden yet? for that answer, and for who to blame, we turn to cnn political director david chalian and toss

that hot potato right into his lap. what's going on, david? >> i love this. no, seriously, it is the question everybody's asking. it makes perfect sense. we are reporting out what are clear trends in these vote counts. you see in pennsylvania, for example, every time a batch of votes comes in, especially if they're mail votes, they're voting overwhelmingly for joe biden. he pads his lead. we've watched this for days now. here's the issue, what our decision desk, a team of statistical experts and analysts who dive through every bit of vote information as reports occur are looking to get to an extraordinarily high level of certainty that the number two candidate, in this case, donald trump, has no way of overtaking the number one candidate, in this case, joe biden, with what is still outstanding. and so, part of our reporting effort is to learn everything we can about what is outstanding.

what do we know about provisional ballots. do we know if any have been counted and how are they belaving? what do we know about any o outstanding mail ballots and where they're from? all of those things. and we need to see enough vote come in to confirm that our assumption about the way these votes are going to behave is actually occurring. and there's only one way to confirm an assumption, which is to actually see the votes come in. until enough votes come in, to get to you the threshold, where you are 99 point -- you know, 7% certain that the number two candidate can't take over the number one person. >> even the construction crews assumed that the election would be over by saturday. they're at work. david, the provisional ballots to what extent has the composition of the provisional ballots perhaps caused some

pause? and again, i don't think there's anything wrong with pause, because you want certainty here. but there's an unusual high number of provisional ballots in pennsylvania. explain why maybe it has been challenging to understand the shame of these ballots. >> well, this is related to the fact that we're doing this election in a pandemic, right, john? and that people are voting differently, specifically in pennsylvania which has no history of this kind of volume of vote by mail and absentee voting. it's not -- typically, let's say prepandemic, in an election. provisional ballot, somebody is not on the voter roll, they get to fill it out, it gets checked later on. or a signature doesn't match. here, people who received a ballot in the mail and maybe didn't send it in and then shows up at the polls. there's a whole new universe of people in a high mail-voting election that may be casting provisional ballots on election day. now, here's the thing we have to figure out, right, we know

election day voters. we saw what president trump was able to do completely deliver a really impressive turnout of his voters on election day. and we know that the vote by mail voters overwhelmingly with joe biden voters in this election. so, knowing that the provisional -- people who were casting provisional ballots may be more like mail voters even though they're ballot is being cast on election day, or are they more like election day voters, that needs to be sorted. because we haven't seen this kind of level of provisional ballot history because of the mail issue. >> do you have any sense yet what they're looking more like? because we're hearing from election officials what queer seeing evidenced in counties like erie county, right in the middle. it comes out to be the overall state turnout is what it seems to be? >> again, kate bolduan was reporting this morning, in philadelphia, 18,000 provisional ballots.

they're not even going to look at those until, right, next week. there are some places we're not going to have insight into the provisional rule. i want to stress, it's not just provisionals that are outstanding, right? so it could be that we learn more in the next installment of votes. and the votes become immaterial -- i don't mean immaterial in votes, but immaterial to the outcome of the election. it's enough of waiting for the enough vote to hit that threshold to make a projection. >> we have to go, david, i'm just curious, who's going to win? >> alisyn, clearly, all the trends show us who's going to win this election. we just need to get to that place of certainty to make projection. >> i appreciate your exercise of caution. thank you for complaining that, it was helpful, david. >> sure. up next, the counting is under way again in philadelphia,

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♪ john berman here along with alisyn camerota. welcome to our viewers in the united states and all around the world. the nation's wait may soon be over. may, but we think probably, as joe biden closes in on winning the presidential election. >> biden's lead over president trump continues to grow in key battleground states. and we do expect a new round of counted ballots this morning. that could put joe biden over the top. but president trump is vowing to fight on in court, while biden

is urging unity. >> all right. the count in terms of electoral votes at this moment, joe biden has 253. the president has 213. biden is potentially one state, or in this case, one commonwealth away from the magic number. and that is where we begin with a cnn key race alert. >> it is the commonwealth of pennsylvania with 20 electoral votes that could put joe biden over the top. if he wins that, he wins the election. currently he leads by 28,000 votes. that number has been growing. tens of thousands of votes remaining. many of them from heavily democratic areas. we're expecting some information from pennsylvania soon. and some new votes to report to you soon. other states we're watching, georgia, overnight, joe biden's lead grew from 4,000 to more than 7,000. doesn't sound like a lot. each vote counts.

16 electoral votes up for grabs. they don't have much left to count there. that state going to a recount for sure. let's talk about arizona, 11 electoral votes. joe biden's lead there has been shrinking. he now has a 29,000 vote lead. republicans will tell you that donald trump needs to be winning about 60% of the remaining vote to overtake joe biden. that hasn't been happening. we're waiting to see what happens with the next batch of votes from arizona later this morning. finally, let's talk about nevada. six electoral votes, joe biden leading by 22,000 votes. a lot of ballots left there. more than 100,000. but most of them come from clark county which is the democratic area of that state. there is the expectation that joe biden's lead will grow again. waiting for more information from the state of nevada. alisyn. >> let's go to pennsylvania where we're told more than 80,000 mail-in ballots remain to be counted. cnn's kate bolduan is live in philadelphia for us this

morning. so what is that status report, kate? >> reporter: so, you talk about the 80,000 across the commonwealth, alisyn, it's 20,000 is the key number here in philadelphia. 20,000 mail-in ballots that is where all of the focus is this morning. these are the ballots that the mail-in ballots that require extra review. they require a second look, hence, why they're being dealt with later in the process because ka takes more time. the process slows down slightly. they actually call them problem child ballots here because that's exactly what they are. they need a little extra review. things like dates are missing. some people put their birth date when they're supposed to be putting the current date on the ballot. they signed the wrong envelope. there's a variety of reasons for these ballots to require extra review. that is what they're getting at this morning. the last update they had from philadelphia was yesterday evening when they uploaded the results for a little over 2,000

more ballots. we're waiting to see how many more they will be getting. this morning, we're told there will be update it's and uploads to the city website that gives the unofficial but official count of where they stand. we're expecting updates, the counts will change. but it is not clear at this moment when that will happen and by how much, because overnight, they had 60 workers in the facility beside me, behind me, preparing these problem child ballots for review. that review has started up this morning. and it's just the process of getting through them. how many they can get through. and when that update happens. alisyn. >> kate, thank you for explaining all of that. and we will await updates from you. thanks for all of that. john. all right, i'm with phil mattingly at the magic wall. we're going to stick with pennsylvania. we're not ignoring georgia, nevada and arizona but we're sticking with pennsylvania because this alone could give joe biden a victory. this right now alone is where

votes are being counted this morning. let's take a look at pennsylvania, where the votes are? >> i'd add another additional element, this alone has it heading in joe biden's favor. all eyes are staring at this wall, maybe on this wall or google maps trying to get a better suense of why it's outstanding. why has the race not been called and for the time being why is joe biden leading by 20,000 is that going to stick? that's going to grow. allegheny county, home of pittsburgh. we had a discussion with an official earlier talking us through what was outstanding there. if you're the biden campaign and you listen to that conversation, you feel very good. 20,000 outstanding ballots. the reality for the entire state of pennsylvania, not unlike wisconsin or michigan, those ballots are heavily democratic. that has been the crux of why joe biden has had a lead in this state. there are 20,000 ballots here and the expectation was spread,

we were today, it's about 80 to 20. you look at the ratio here, you look at the margin, 59 to 39. that's different. that's lower. and yet, because of the mail-in ballots that are coming in. about 20,000 in that area of margin right now, it underscores the advantage that joe biden had. and it's not just allegheny county, it's also the other democratic stronghold in the state. that's southeastern pennsylvania. >> you know what, circle philadelphia for us. >> all right. >> let's pause. we're going to bring in philadelphia city commissioner omar sabir, who we just got on the line here to get a sense of what vote is outstanding from philadelphia. commissioner, thank you so much for being with us. john berman here along with phil mattingly. you can tell us how many votes, and what kind of votes remain from philadelphia? >> again, you know, we have approximately almost -- approximately about 40,000 or so votes.

again, we have 20,000 of those ballots and roughly 18,000 or so provisional ballots. again, we're going to try to get through the problem childs, they call them problematic ballots. i want to be clear to everyone. it's not like a microwave dinner. it's not like it's instant gratification. it takes time. we're going to be meticulous and accurate. believe me, i want to go home just as much as everyone else wants to go home. we have to take our time. we have to do it right. >> omar, commissioner, we're appreciative of the work you're doing there. we know it's not easy. we want you to thank each and every one of the workers for the work they're doing. 20,000 mail-in ballots, 18,000 or so provisionals. when do you expect, commissioner, that you will announce or release the next batch of results? >> okay. so it will be at some point today, again, stay tuned. i'm getting ready to have my

coffee. i just went and took my shower and everything. i'm going to the convention center. going to be some tonight today. i didn't stress how important for america, we're talking around the world, to be patient. there's a lot of tensions. everybody is going crazy right now. i want everybody to take a deep breath and calm down and we're going to get through it accurately as possible. we want it rapidly, accurately and we're going to do it with transparency. >> everyone is calm and everyone is patient and understands the work you're going through. when you say at some point today, i think people just want to know, commissioner, can they get a cup of coffee? can they walk around the block? are you talking 4:00 noon at this point for another batch, or after noon? >> again, at some point again, the words that i may say out of my mouth affect the world. someone just called me and said, hey, you know, i'm in another country around the world, we

want to know what's going on. there could be potential war based on results of what happens with this election. it's going to take time. again, at some point today, you'll get the updates. i like cnn, i love cnn, we'll give you the information as soon as we get it. >> commissioner, phil mattingly here, thanks for what you're doing and the entire team doing there. wanted to know if you have a sense of the universe of where the 20,000 problem-child ballots come from? we notice looking through the data there's a number of precincts that have low reporting in the city of philadelphia. is it fair to assume that the bulk of what's outstanding comes from those precincts, or do you have any sense of that right now? >> not right now. we had -- i'm on 30 minutes' sleep. let me just go in and evaluate to see exactly what is going on. we had meetings last night. we're going over, trying to evaluate and get this done. we'll give you more information as soon as we get it.

>> to phil's point, is there any in-person philadelphia vote left to count? there's been some speculation that may be part of the overall vote also? >> up to 90%, on our website, i can't see it. we're almost there. we're missing a couple divisions. 1700 divisions may be two or three divisions missing. i'm not looking at the website. we're almost there. missing a couple divisions, it's not that much. which is typical, you know, in an election. this is not uncommon. >> commissioner, how many votes are you getting through? roughly speaking, how long does it take to process each vote or each hundred votes or each thousand votes. give us a sense of the process? >> again, it's no real sense of time. again, as we identify all of the problem-childs, we'll come back to the return board once they're

segregated, we'll come to the election return board. and three commissioners will vote on the problem-child, whether or not to accept it. again it takes time. it's tedious work, it's meticulous work. i want to thank the county board of elections the work they're doing, it's phenomenal. again, it's a public process. we vote right at the convention center. everyone will be able to observe us making the votes on these problem-childs. >> commissioner, i know you're busy, we'll let you get back to it. kind of along those lines, philadelphia has been attacked by the president pretty acutely over the course of the last couple days. what's kind of your response to that, what's your view when you hear that, based on what you've seen and what you've been involved in? >> well, i mean, listen, it's america, right? everyone has freedom of speech. so, again, he has his opinion, i mean, that's his opinion. just because he makes an opinion doesn't necessarily make it a fact, doesn't make it the truth.

again, just to reiterate, philadelphia, you're going to get a safe, secure and accurate election. again, we want it rapidly, accurately and we're going to do it with transparency. >> omar sabir, philadelphia city commissioner, we thank you so much for being with us and shedding some light on the process, where we are right now. more importantly, we thank you and the people you work with for counting those votes. for helping everyone make their voice heard. >> thank you. >> we'll get you a cup of coffee, when we can, we owe you. thank you, sir. >> thank you, i appreciate that. all right. now, to the nuts and bolts, what did we just learn? well, not much about the timing. he said some point today. that's going to be frustrating for people. pittsburgh, allegheny county earlier today, told us sometime late this morning, early this afternoon, they're going to begin releasing more counts. philadelphia, a lot less clarity. what we do know, 20,000 mail-in votes still to be counted. let's do some math on just the

20,000, phil. 20,000 mail-in votes. joe biden's been getting 80%, conservatively. >> conservatively. >> let's go with that. 80%. i've done the math, that would be 16,000 votes in philadelphia for joe biden. 4,000 for donald trump. that would be a 12,000-vote margin that you would be able to add to the overall total, that's 28,000, that would put joe biden at 40,000, roughly. >> right. >> allegheny county, 20,000 mail-in ballots, 75% to 80%, let's get to the same math, so we don't have to do it again. maybe another 12,000 votes that will put joe biden over 50,000. this is without even counting the provisional ballots which we think have the same rough shape. so, you start to see how this adds up very quickly. >> it underscores the reality that both campaigns are seeing.

the biden campaign is willing to talk about it publicly. but we've also been talking about it routinely over the past 24 hours. you have to underscore the fact that there are other counties in democratic strongholds. you can move around and you see, montgomery county, 95% reporting. you look at that margin. chester county, a democratic stronghold. not as big batches as you have in allegheny as in philadelphia, but everything you're looking at right now is the type of vote that will add votes on net to joe biden. when you talk about what the final margin might be, when you look at that, potential. and nobody has an answer to where does donald trump go to blunt that, to counter that, to stop the bleeding? and the answer is we're not sure they exist. >> in fact, there is some evidence they don't exist. >> right. >> we're waiting the counts are coming in.

allegheny county told us we could get some later this morning. we obviously will bring them to you the minute we have. phil, go back to the wall. do some math. in the meantime, we know president trump is watching, we know he's awake because he's spent the last hour lying on twitter about the vote around the country. four of his tweets already labeled inaccurate. next a republican election lawyer joins us to talk about how this will play out in the courts.

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take a stand and start a new day with trelegy. ask your doctor about once-daily trelegy. and save at trelegy.com. ballot counting under way in pennsylvania. you can see it live, happening there on the side of the screen in pittsburgh right now. joe biden is appealing for unity and patience as the nation awaits the election results.

cnn's jess caica dean is in delaware, near biden headquarters. what are you hearing happening behind the scenes there? >> reporter: well, good morning to you, alisyn, the biden campaign and joe biden himself waiting like the rest of us. you see the stage that's been set up for days. it's still set up behind me. the question is, will it get used today. how will that pan out. everyone waiting for this race to be called. everyone waiting for these ballots to be counted. meantime, we did see joe biden late last night, as he addressed the nation. you mentioned, he called for unity. he also believes firmly that when all of these votes are counted and this race is called, he will prevail. but he's already started with that message of unity of trying to bring americans together and turn down the temperature. take a listen. >> we may be opponents, but we're not enemies. we're americans. no matter who you voted for i'm

certain of one thing, the vast majority of them, 150 million americans who voted they want to get the vitriol out of our politics. >> reporter: biden went on to say there's no time to waste on the crisis facing the nation. he's continued to get his covid briefings out, alisyn. we saw him earlier going through one of those briefings, they're trying to get ready, put their plan in place, should he become the president-elect of the united states. we also know, like so many americans he's been at home watching these results come in with family and senior advisers. right now, alisyn, we all just wait. >> it is hard to live in limbo, jessica. we know that, but that's where we are at the moment. thank you very much. moments ago, twitter flagged four of president trump's tweets as misleading. they include multiple claims about voter fraud.

as far as we know, none of his claims in the key battleground states are supported by evidence. still, they're watching legal challenges. will those gum up the process? joining us now is ben begiginsb a republican involved in the bush versus gore recount. ben, nice to see you. i don't want to read the president's tweets because they've been labeled as misinformation. i will summarize for you. he seems very upset about the ballots in pennsylvania postmarked after -- no, they were postmarked on election day but received in the three days after. the pennsylvania supreme court all right ruled that was locality legal and legit. is there a chance in pennsylvania that the supreme court could reverse that? >> look, there's always a chance, but i think it's unlikely because that would

result in thes enfr disenfrancht of the large number of voters who were simply given the instructions by election administrators. it would be a valid case for the supreme court to consider the whole idea of extending deadlines past election day, but not involves this election. and for pennsylvania there's also an interesting legal but some obscure question about whether the legislature or the state supreme court is the final decider on elections cases. >> and what's the answer to that one? >> it's a good question. so, the literal words in the constitution are the legislature, but it isn't clear the legislature is a more expansive term. you can flip a coin on it. >> so the u.s. supreme court has to decide that one? >> yeah, they can decide it. they don't have to decide it. i think it's unlikely that will impact this election. there's a valid ruling for the

people of pennsylvania to note for this state and legislative laces in 2021. >> another thing the president brings i'm going to paraphrase it rather than read it because we don't have evidence of it i do hear his surrogates and allies talking about it and trying to gin up a lost of outrage. it's the solid observers of the counters. as far as we know, there's an equal amount of republican observers, democrat observers. they're supposed to stand ten feet apart. i think in court, they wanted them to move closer to six feet. is there anything going wrong as far as you know? is there any legal legitimacy to this? >> well, no, there have been observers. that's not been a question. they want more access. closer access. they've been given that. the important thing to remember is that there are no allegations of fraud involved in this. there are no votes involved in

it, that would impact the ultimate count in the state. so, it's a bit of procedural complaining, maybe even whining. let the people stand closer if they think they need that. but, again, this going to affect the outcome. >> so, ben, what about the legal challenges, there's a slew of them, not just in pennsylvania, but the president's team has launched them in various battleground states. and i believe we already are headed to a recount in georgia. so will that slow down the process? let's say that joe biden is declared the winner, will that slow down the transition? >> so, that's a good question, we should separate out recount which is any candidate is entitled to and takes place under state processes, with any number of the lawsuits that have been filed, which don't seem to be outcome-determinant, and probably not well-founded. so, each state has a process to conduct its recounts and time

lines in which it should finish up and not delay the process. but -- and here's the but -- none of these states have really road-tested their recount laws under the stress of a pennsylvania contest. and so, in florida, in 2000, for example, it took a long time and came right up on the deadlines. so, you do need certified results of the election before the electoral college is supposed to meet december 8th, safe harbor, december 14th, the actual meeting of the electors in the state capitol. so that is the deadline to keep involved. think of poor georgia. 159 counties. that's 1100 more than we had to deal with in florida. they had two senate runoff elections at the same time. all of that activity in georgia is a sign that the political gods do have a sense of humor.

>> that's one interpretation. and i like it. ben ginsberg, thank you very much. >> thank you, alisyn. we do have reporting that joe biden and his team are already in the planning process for the transition. we're going to speak to the men in charge of the bush transition team in 2000. that transition took place during controversy. we're going to get his take on what the biden folks, and, frankly, the white house should be doing right now. stick around. . ♪ ♪ after we make grilled cheese, ♪ ♪ then we're eating grilled cheese. ♪ ♪ because it's time. ♪ yeah. ♪ time for grilled cheese. we create high performance, - [announcer] we're thrive cosmetics, cruelty free, 100% vegan formulas and we love that you love our products. like our award winning liquid lash extensions mascara. plus, with every product you purchase we donate to help a woman thrive. join our movement today at thrivecosmetics.com. our own hopes and dreams. we'll pass many milestones.

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we know they are counting votes in pennsylvania. we've been told that allegheny county, home of pittsburgh, could release some results later this morning. we're watching that very closely now. even while they are counting, there is planning in place for the presidential transition. either for a second trump administration, or what seems more likely now, a biden

administration. >> okay. for more on this, we're joined now by cnn political commentator and former advisor to president bill clinton, ball bpaul begala executive director of bush transition team, clay johnson. mr. johnson, i want to start with you, because there are similarities in that there are also legal challenges this time around. president trump's legal team are launching lots of sometimes meritless legal challenges, according to the judges. but still there is a slew of them. and i'm wondering if what happened in 2000 ended up bogging down the transition and stalling it somehow. >> a little bit, but not much. most candidates for president back then did not even want to utter the word transition until the election was over. they thought it was bad and caused them to get unlucky which

is sort of silly. bush challenged me in 16 months before the election when he asked me to be his chief of staff in austin. besides being chief of staff, clay, i want you to develop a plan what we do when i win the presidency the next 16 months from now. he challenged me for the next 16 months. my understanding, vice president candidate biden has brought a person on board to start organizing his transition four, five, six months ago. that has to happen. you have to assume you are going to win. and it's just a matter of when you start putting people into place. and so, we were -- dick cheney said we can't wait to find out what the courts are going to rule. we have to assume that we are going to be the president-elect, so we opened up an office early before the votes were made official. and went up there and raised

some private money. and established a transition office. and so went into -- after the courts ruled that we moved into government offices and we could expand our staff. but we were working hard. you can't wait until someone says, okay, it's ready to go. it's a lot of work that has to be done before noon on january 20th. you got to start early. and you got to work through hectic times. you're deluged with a lot of input, you have to manage it and be prepared to govern by the time the new president is sworn in. >> look, i remember this, because i was there. i was in austin and george w. bush announced his senior white house staff in the middle of the recount. george w. bush announced cabinet selections in the middle of the recount for a couple reasons. one, because you have to, you need to, to get the ball rolling. the other reason is because it lets the world know that you think you won. and it gives a sense of finality to it all. >> yeah. >> the question is, the clinton

administration wasn't unkwoo uncooperative with you. the outgoing clinton administration didn't shut the door in your face when you were transition planning. what happens if the trump administration does shut the door in the face of the biden team in the transition? >> well, there's not a whole lot that the trump -- the outgoing -- current administration can do to significantly impair transition planning for an incoming administration. there are some things they can do to make it nice. like the first time that a new administration sits down in the situation room to deal with some major international matter should not be when the meeting is for real. i mean, the people who are going to be in there making huge, the important decisions, should have had some prior experience, sort of informal briefings and so forth, just to get used to the ambience of the place and what it looks like. what a typical military presentation looks like. so forth and so on. so, that can be facilitated by

an outgoing administration, but if that isn't facilitated by the outgoing administration, there are other ways to play catch-up in the first few days back. but you can do -- make decisions about who your appointees are going to be. you can do informal background checks. in our case, we had general counsel for i think president reagan, fred feelifielding was name who would meet with people who we were most high on to be secretary of state, this and that. and ask him important questions about potential conflicts of interests and improprieties and so forth, as they tell us now what's there. and proceed forward. and if something comes up in the background check later that we're not aware of, we're going to drop you. but otherwise, we're going to stand behind you. we can do all of the things we could do informally until you

officially as the candidate can do it formally. >> makes sense. paul, of course, former vice president biden knows his way around the white house and west wing. will that make the transition easier? >> oh, i think it definitely will -- ted kaufman is the guy, clay, he's so close to joe. he was joe's chief of staff for decades in the senate. when joe became the vice president, the governor of delaware appointed ted as the interim senator to fill biden's seat. he's the closest person to joe whose last nature is not biden. and with rich experience. they're operating as clay knows under the presidential transition act of 1953. that was beefed up in a bill written by interim senator ted kaufman. so with the landing teams, you call them landing parties go each agency to review what's going on there and changes that you might want to make. there are background checks that must be done.

there are legal requirements. of course, this president thumbs his nose at all norms and legal requirements. the first call is made by the head of of the gsa, general services association, by law, for the incoming president. she makes that call. erin murphy is her name. she is in the bush administration. she's a republican. it's confirmed unanimously, the democrats have no complaints with her. she's not released the funding yet and i don't blame per. but very soon she should. the supreme court not going to be in the middle. i suspect she's waiting for chalian and the decision desk to make the decision. >> who isn't. paul begala and clay johnson, thank you for walking us through that. really interesting. >> thanks. moments from now john, we're expecting a new batch of votes

to come in from georgia and pennsylvania. of course that could put joe biden over the top. so, stand by. oh humans. listen to what every strain... every twist-oof- and every backache is telling you: you cannot do this. pain says you can't. advil says you can. ♪ ride... ♪ relax... now you're cloud surfing (record scratch) ♪ ride... ♪ relax...

all right. this is cnn's special live coverage. let's take a look at where things stand in the state of georgia. agen as of now, joe biden leads by 7,000 votes. electric 16 electoral votes up for grabs. biden up by 7,000. that group, relatively speaking substantially overnight from 4,000 to 7,000. the size of that lead may play into the ultimate outcome. we are stitt waiting for votes in georgia. some of those votes are the military and overseas ballots. cnn anchor brianna keilar knows a ton about this. following it closely, not just in georgia but around the country. let's start with what we know. >> let's start with what is new.

which is we know about 900 military and overseas ballots came in by close of business yesterday which was the deadline of georgia to receive those. now, that 900 came in fulton county. yes, the most populous county. what about the other counties? we don't know about at this time. you add those to the 18,008 military and overseas ballots received and counted in georgia. these are the ballots of service members, their spouses and other fellow americans overseas. what we knew yesterday afternoon from the georgia secretary of state, john, there were 8400 outstanding ballots. it would be very weird for all of those to have come in. those were the ballots that were sent out and had not been received back. some of them would have been in transit. we know that from the 900 that came into fulton county. some of them aren't cast. that's what happened. in 2015, about one-third that

went overseas and military did not come back, they were not cast. so it's not unusual. >> so it makes up military ballots and overseas ballots and people think they might behave differently. people make assumptions about military ballots. president trump said there are missing military ballots there aren't. he seems to be implying or thinking in his head there's a huge advantage in that group. what do we know about that group? >> that might be an outdated assumption. back in 2000, during the recount in florida, it was probably a safe assumption that republicans wanted military ballots to be counted there. that would favor them. that would be something accepted looking back by republicans. and there's a recent poll of active duty military, this was completed in july and august which i should also note before the atlantic piece came out that showed the president referred to

veterans as suckers and losers. what it showed active duty service members were trending towards joe biden. i know a lot of people maybe aren't putting a ton of faith in the polls right now, but the apples to apples numbers in that military times poll showed from 2016 to 20 went there was an erosion of support for donald trump among service members. so, he shouldn't bank on the fact that this is something that would help him. but also there are no missing ballots. just to be clear. that is what i outlined was the outstanding ballots. they are ballots with military folks and overseas folks and regular americans who vote absentee, that they don't almost send every one back. that would be weird if they did, actually. >> in terms of military ballots received after election day what does the law say about that, brianna? >> well, they are protected, president trump saying that ballots received after election

day are illegal, he's actually calling, john, for a scenario, where you would have service members and their families and other overseas americans casting ballots that by law should be counted. but he's saying that he shouldn't. you could actually have a situation where there are military members who are actively defending a country that they can't vote in if you took what the president said to the bank. now, that's not what election officials are taking to the bank, because these are protected votes. right? just like all of our votes are protected. and while georgia had till close of business for them to come in yesterday, other states are actually giving longer, by law, right? nevada and pennsylvania. these votes can come in until tuesday, november 10th. when you look at "national geographic," north carolina, it's even longer, thursday, november 12th. again, they have to be counted by law, right? they have to be counted. >> your vote counts.keilar, reat information. thank you so much.

>> you bet. >> alisyn. okay, john, joe biden is up by more than 22,000 votes in nevada right now. so, we'll take you there live to find out when election voters might finish the count. that's next. ...with rinvoq. rinvoq a once-daily pill... ...can dramatically improve symptoms... rinvoq helps tame pain, stiffness, swelling. and for some... rinvoq can even significantly reduce ra fatigue. that's rinvoq relief. with ra, your overactive immune system attacks your joints. rinvoq regulates it to help stop the attack. rinvoq can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious infections and blood clots, sometimes fatal, have occurred... ...as have certain cancers, including lymphoma, and tears in the stomach or intestines, and changes in lab results. your doctor should monitor your bloodwork. tell your doctor about any infections... and if you are or may become pregnant while taking rinvoq.

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because they're always on. another life-changing technology from abbott. so you don't wait for life. you live it. welcome back to cnn's special live coverage. let's take a look at the crucial state of nevada. they are still counting there. six electoral votes up for grabs. joe biden leading by 22,000 votes. now, more than 100,000 votes remaining in nevada. what do we know about them? they mostly come from clark

county, a heavily democratic area. it's possible joe biden will expand his lead there. we're still waiting for new numbers. >> those are the numbers at the moment. let's get an update on what's happening on the ground. cnn's erica hill is there. tell us the status. what is the timeline? >> reporter: good morning. so we will have another update at noon eastern, 9:00 a.m. local time here today. we're getting these updates. now twice a day from clark county, which is good news. there's been grumbling about not getting information quickly enough. the secretary of state will update the numbers this morning and we'll hear directly from the clark county registrar about an hour after that, and then we'll get a second information dump now here in clark county. that we should have sometime before 7:00 eastern time, 4:00 pacific. they're not giving us an exact time on that. what we do know, more than 124,000 ballots that still need to be processed in this state, just under half of those are

mail-in ballots. every active voter in the state was sent a mail-in ballot this year and 70% plus of voters in the state of nevada are in clark county. 90% of all outstanding ballots also here in clark county, according to the secretary of state. we're hoping for some more numbers today on the 58,500 ballots that we know. there are also the same-day registration provisional ballots that need to be processed, so we're looking for more information on those. some of them can't start to be processed until all the mail-in ballots are processed. we're told that mail-in ballots that are in-house should be processed by tomorrow. we know another 241 came in in yesterday morning's mail. more ballots can arrive up until tuesday, november 10th, because here in nevada, as long as the mail-in ballot was postmarked on election day, november 3rd, it can be received until the 10th and then processed. we're not done yet. that's the short answer in a long way. >> we'll stand by to stand by.

erica hill, thank you very much. on the other side of your screen, you're watching pictures out of pennsylvania and georgia, we have for you. vote counting is under way for a fifth day, and soon those states are expected to release a new batch of results. stay with us for cnn's live special coverage. where got the s on refrigerators, microwaves, gas ranges and grills. and if you're looking for... tremfya® can help adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis

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we're awaiting new results from the crucial presidential battleground of pennsylvania. thousands of votes may finally -- may finally decide this election. i'm wolf blitzer. we're back in the cnn election center. former vice president joe biden says he has no doubt he will win the white house and defeat president trump, but the numbers aren't quite there yet. they could be very, very soon. vote counters are back at work in pennsylvania and we expect new vote tallies to drop at any time. we also expect new results from arizona and nevada in the hours ahead. but only pennsylvania could put biden over the top on its own. it's 20 electoral votes would