rolled out slowly and with issues, identifying who the felons are it is possible we will see many ineligible felons cast ballots and there is already discussion about challenging those ballots from republicans. on the other side, democrats are concerned about how the state applies a rule, which is decided county by county. you have places with little training in sort of the forensics of matching signatures and deciding which ballots count. and already we have seen studies that show african-american voters and students are being disenfranchised by that, more than any other demographic. if it comes down to a recount, i think the questions and concerns will follow along those lines, less around the early voting and vote by mail procedures, like we are seeing in pennsylvania. is a political

editor for the tampa bay times, steveyou can call us, post on sl media as well. also, we will focus on specific states with reporters who have been closely following these events. pennsylvania, closely watched in this cycle. thank you for joining us and giving us your time. guest: thank you for having me. host: what you make of the aggressive nature just in the last days or so of candidates going to this state? guest: i think both campaigns think this state is in play. i do not think either campaign feels like they have pennsylvania locked down. i think they are particularly concerned about blue-collar voters. if you remember, democrats onlyht joe biden was the candidate to be able to be donald trump with blue-collar voters.

we will see if that comes to pass. i think trump is concerned he has lost a few points with blue-collar workers in the southwest corner. but, he has gained support in the northeast corner which is the area where joe biden is from. ishink they know the state in play and they are trying to do their best to keep those margins down. biden does not want trump to run up margins and red counties like he did last time. trump is trying to cut into the margins in the blue counties. host:host: we saw in 2016, the president cut 48.2% of the support their versus hillary clinton at 47.5%. razor thin margins. are those margins still at play today? guest: it still feels like a close race. biden had a lead here for the last year or so, but his lead has been within the margin of error in most polls.

at has felt close. i think you need no more proof than how often they have been coming here. they have come here more often than any other battleground state. host: how many people have voted so far in the commonwealth? what is the potential for turnout today? guest: more than 3 million mail-in ballots have been requested. it is my understanding that more than 2 million have been returned. i can tell you i went to my polling place this morning, i had to turn around because i never would have made it in time for this interview because the line was so long. i have never seen a line like this at my polling place. it was stretched around several blocks. and then you had full parking lots at the church and nearby communities i was stunned. host: thank you for showing up. if turnout does become a large factor, who does that benefit?

guest: it depends who you ask. mightcampaign thinks it benefit them, the trump campaign thinks it benefits them. by and large, the mail-in ballots that have been returned so far have been democrat voting. trumpre expecting all the supporters to show up today, but there are still plenty of democrats who have not voted yet. at all. they are going to go to the pulse today too. we have to wait and see. when the pennsylvania election will be called is a big question mark. host: can you explain that? guest: we have seven counties in pennsylvania who have said they will not start processing mail until tomorrow. they just want to focus on the traditional voting today and they will get to those others tomorrow.

thever, our counties with largest populations like philadelphia, suburban counties, allegheny county where pittsburgh is, they are all starting to count their mail-in ballots today. lawsuits,a number of also. we will have to see how some of those work out. mainly, the holdup could potentially be the counting of mail-in ballots. the reason why we have so many mail-in ballots is the pandemic. host: talk about the legal battles that could end up because of all of these battles. what is your sense of the teams in place there? is my understanding that trump is having philadelphia and counties out there like micah murray, chester, buck, delaware, he has people on the ground there the processing. i know they are very concerned

about -- the main point seems to be right now, ballots that come in after election day. as you know, the supreme court allowed if your ballot is received up to friday that your vote can be counted. campaign isp fighting that. however, ohio has basically 10 days. you are dealing with a lot of different states with a lot of different rules. the trump campaign has lawsuits in several states. there could beat election fraud with these ballots coming in later. in his lawsuit during the primary, his campaign failed to produce any example of widespread fraud in the primary. --far during the selection this election, we had one case of fraud in luzern county.

it was a republican man trying to vote for his dead mother. with that in mind, talk about areas of the state, even as result filter in over the next few days, what areas of the commonwealth will you be focusing on as far as determining who wins? guest: i am actually interested in the red counties, which you do not hear often. a lot of people will focus on philly and the suburbs. those areas are important, for sure. decades, democrats could win pennsylvania just by winning philadelphia and suburban counties. trump in 2016 turned that strategy on its head. high in redrgins so counties that democrats could not compensate for those margin losses in red counties. i'm going to watch. -- if biden does

better than clinton and those red counties, even if he does not do as well as obama did in 2012, but if he does better than hillary clinton did four years ago, that is going to turn out to be a good night for him. as we mentioned earlier in the show, trump won by a little more than 44,000 votes. we will be watching those red counties. who reportswhat all for the york daily report. she and others are going to be closely watching this election day. she still needs to vote, so we will let her on >> the u.s. supreme court heard .ral arguments in jones v , a case on juvenile

life sentences without parole and whether a court must determine that the juvenile cannot be rehabilitated or reformed before imposing such a sentence. in 2004, 15-year-old brett jones stabbed and killed his grandfather during an altercation. during trial, his legal team argued self-defense, but he was convicted him of murder and received a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole. the supreme court in 2012 ruled that such a sentence violated the eighth amendment. mr. jones' legal team filed for post-conviction relief, and a new sentencing hearing was ordered. the court ruled against him, and he filed an appeal to the state's court of appeals. as the case pended, the supreme court ruled that the eight amendment prohibited life without parole sentences "for all but the rarest of juvenile offenders, those whose crimes reflect permanent incorrigibility."