captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc oo >> woodruff:evening, i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight, the final stretch-- candidates campaign hard in the all- important swing states with only five days to go until the end of voting. then, thstate of the economy. despite strong jobs numbers, the pandemic recovery slows wn as the president's manufacturing promises fail to materialize. and, the information war-- attempts by foreign governments to mislead american voters and sow distrust in election results continue with new, sophisticated digital techniques. >> the goal is to cause chaos d distrust in the institutions that govern our democracy and frankly, to cause di between americans themselves.f: >> woodrll that and more on tonight's pbs newshour.

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presidential candis, the urgency is growing tonight. every minute counts as election daylooms closer. and, every rally represents a fleeting chance to tip critical white house correspondent. yamiche alcindor reports on this day. >> alcindor: five days until the election. and, increasingly, both presidential campaignare holding dueling raies in the same battleground states, on the same days. today, it was flora, a state that has backed the winning candidate since 1996, and wh 29 electoral votes at stake. president trump held his rally in tampa and continued to downplay the rise in covid-19 cases around the country. >> we're never going to lock down again. we locked down, understood the disease, and n we're open for business and that's what it is.

our vaccine will eradicate the virus, and by the wayave t and whether we have it or not, it's roundi turn. it's rounding the turn. >> alcindor: to date, the u.s. hareported roughly 8.9 million confirmed infectis and some 228,000 dehs. the democratic candite, former vice president joe biden, has blamed the president's handling of the covid crisis for the extent of the viral spread. today, iard county, florida, he urged people to vote. >> millions of americans are already voting. millns more are going to vo by the end of this week. and i believe when y use your power, the power to vote, you're going tohange the course of the country for generations tome t home and abroad. you hold the key. if florida goes blue, it's over! it's over! >> alcindor: mr. biden has alsl ged to create a task force to reunite more than 500 migrant children separat from their families.

that comes on the heels of a lawsuit by the american civil that 545 immigrant children have remained separated from their parents since 2017. during a trump campaign phone ll yesterday, white house adviser stephen miller was asked if the government could reunite the families. he answered by claiming that the trump administration "kept families together." ll today, ase for the running mates, vice democratically-controlled house judiciary committee released a five-00 page report on the trump administration's family separation policy. the findings concluded the government initiated separations a year before expanding the policy nationwide, and it did so knowing there was no plan tore nite them. as for the as for the running mates, vice president mike pence focused his campaign efforts in iowa hebefoe ading to nevada. cawhereafornia senator kamala harris spent the day attending virtual events. but record numbers of americans have already made their decision, as evidenced by the lines at early voting stations. across the country, voters have

spent hours waiting to cast their ballots. madison myers of atlanta was one of them. >> i'meally surprised at myself that i stayed in the line it at the back, i actuallyend of wanted to get back in my car. >>lcindor: more than 80 million americans have already cast their ballots for next week's election. for the pbs newshour, i'm yamichalcindor. >> woodruff: today provided the last major econom data before the election, and it gave the president some good news. economic output this past quarter grew at the fastest pac on record since world war ii: 7.4%. that's a sharp rebound from the record plunge of the previous quarter.bu 23 million people are still receiving unemployment assistae. one more data point: as the

president and vice president biden visit midwestern states in the final days, a new analysis finds private job growth in michigan, wisconsinhio was about half the national average during the past four years. david lynch of the "washington post" is reporting on all of thisnd joins me now. david lynch, welcome. so this news about economic growth on the surface sounds very good-- 7.4% in the third quarte after bein down 9% the previous quarter. but put itn context. how much of a bounce-back is it? >> well, the good news is it was a very strg quarter. but itame after a terrible f urse, in the second quarter, when the economy was put in a deep freeze as we battled the pandemic. context, we've awed back about two-thirds ofhat we st since the pandemic het.

but this is still ayeepl damaged economy that has a lot more healing to do. >> woodruff: and you were talking to us abouthe effect n a stimulus package. there was onethe spring. as we know, there has not been agreement onernoone. just today the speaker and the white house were trading charges about who's at fault. how much difference might it be making right now if there were another economic aid package? >> suwere. , this is the critical dimension. this is one of the main engines that powered the strong growth in the third quarter, and it's petered out. and you don't have to take my word for it. the chairman of the federal reserve, jerome powell, and other fed officials have been remarkably blunt in their public statements saying the congress and the admintration need to do much more to keep the economy going. and since that stimulus is now gone, effectively, and it will

be weeks, if benot monthsre there's a chance to cobble together a new package, thy e econ going to have to fly on its own at the moment, and alls ngie not running. >> woodruff: david lynch, can you say in a nutshell what parts of the economy have come back and which are still struggling? >> sure. there's been a major reallocation below the surface of the economy, from servicgoes spending tods. people are out there buying cars, buying homes, buying refrigerators. and they're using all theoney, in many cases that they would have spent at restaurants, at hotel, on airplane flights, at theater performances, baseball games-- all the things that people dot feel safe doing with the pandemic still ialent and,eed, spreading uncontrollably in many parts of the count. ere's been this shift from services to goods.

that's caoiusing, orncident with a reallocation of labor as people who us ed towork behind the desk at a hotel or a rental car counter at the airport have been laid off, and now must find other work. d that's why the labor market is still in so much trouble an will probably lag output as we continue to recover. >> woodruff: and, meantime, there is manufacturing. we were very well president trump early on after he was elected said that he was going to focus on building up manufacturing in this couhentry. ade promises about keeping jobs from going out of the country. how has that worked out? >> well, it's been mething less than a complete success. the president did have a good performance in the first couple of years of his administration in terms ofin bri back, or at least growing some manufacturing tjobs-- almos 500,000 new jobs in the first couple of years. o tapert growth started t off in the middle of 2018, and

really was down toery little by late fall of last year, even before the pandemic hit and threw things into reverse. if you take the longer view, the country is still about five million manufacturing jobs erbew before china joined the w.t.o., for instance, and thsort of broad repatriation of factory jobs that the president promised and that he continues to promise has yet to materialize. term, >> woodruff: , bottom line, what about the jobs that the president prosed he was going to keep in this country? and, specifically, companies like the carrier corporation in indiana? >> surase. well, thateally the signature initiative of his first days as president-elect. you recall he leaned quite hard on the c.e.o. of carriers corporate parent at the time to

try and keep several hundred jo in indianapolis that the company had earmarked to send to me and the president did have a limited success there. he wable to get the company to agree to keep about 800 jobs therbut another 1300 carrier jobs moved offshore soon after. more broadly, other companies in indiana, of course, have reallocation of labor, sending jobs to places like mex aico, chind india. so even if it's not continuing with the sa steady fl that we saw in the first years of th1 century, it does continue, and it ctinues because companies are responding to more than just presidential exoritation and the bully pulpit. line work, and until factorsom like wker training and

education and the like are dealt with in a more comprehensive way, the logic still drives them to other places. >> woodruff: complicated picture, and very tough for people who work for those companies in that sector. david lyn of the "washington post," we thank you very much. >> sure. >> woodruff:n the day's other news, stark new numbers underscored the worsening covid- 19 pandemic. o the world healanization reported a weekly record of one d a half-million new cases across europe. in berlin, german chancellor angela merkel warned of a hard winter, and she denounced those who claim there's no need for new restrictions. >> ( translated ): we are in ti dramatic sit, and it affects us all. the ansituation is worryin cannot be talked away.

wishful thinking or trivializatis are not just untruthful, they are irresponsible. woodruff: here at home, tallies of new infections hit seven states.oday, i remnants of hurricane "zet raced across the southern u.s. today, leaving widespread damage, power outages and at least six dead. high winds uprooted trees and knocked out electricity toll several n customers from new orleans to atlanta and beyond. the governor of louisiana, where "zeta" made landfall last night, urged caution today. that its not the stormerybody principally that causes folks to be hurt or killed. its the immediate aftermath when the clean up starts, and when people run generators and so forth. really asking everybody to be cautious. >> woodruff: the worst damage appeed to be in several tons

along the louisiana and mississippi coasts. the most powerful typhoon to hit vietnam in 2years has killed 35 people and left dozens missing. it slammed into the central provinces on wednesday, triggeri and landslides.oods rescuers have been digging for survivors and using bulldozers to clear roads. naval vessels are searching for fishermen whose boats sank. there's wo that at least 140 migrants drowned last weekend off west africa. the u.n.'s international organization of migration says it was the deadlst such incident this yeane the vessel band sank off senegal as it was trying to reach spain's cana islands nearly 900 miles away. migrant arriva in the canarys ve risen sharply this year, but more than 400 have died in the atmpt. france is on maximum alert tonight, aer a man with a knife killed three people at a church in nice.

police say the attacker was a muslim extremist from tunisia. he was wounded and captured. president emmanuel macnur visited the ch later. he annnced he is more than doubling the number of soldiers deployed to protect against terrorist incidents. >> ( translated ): it's a message of complete strenh that i would c like vey today. and it's also a message of unity. and i would like to say to all of our citizens, whatever their religion, if they believe or not, that we have to, in thesome moments,e together and not give in tohe spirit of division. >> woodruff: france has suffered a series of recent attacks, over cartoons of the prophammad -- offensive to muslims. turkey, in particular,enounced publication of the cartoons. turkish present recep tayyip erdogan accused macron of islamophobia. back in this country, hospitals may be under threat of so-called ransomware attacks, disrupting patient care as virus cases spike.

the f.b.i. and other aencies warn that a russian cyber gang is tying up crucial systems until money is paid. we'll return to this, later in program. the u.s. interior department removed gray wolves from the endangered species list today. the decision could allow wolfin hunthe presidential battleground states of michigan, minnesota and wisconsin. conservation groups fought a similar move under the obama administration, and vow to fight and, on wall stree day's economic reports helped stocks rebound a bit after wednesday's big sell-off. the dow jones industrial average gained 139 points to close at 26,659. the s&p 500 added 39.oints, and, still to come on the newshour: widespread wes continue to burn across the western u.s. foreign attemp to mislead american voters and sow distrust

in election results continue. we examine the statefo legislatures ugrabs and the myriad initiatives on ballots nationwide. us much more. >> woodruff: in a number of states out west, there's been little relief from a record breaking fire seas that's burned more than five million acres. the latest troubles have included a pair of fires near that are finally bontainednia and had forced tens of thousands to evacuate until now. in colorado, the east troublesome and cameron peak fires burnedore than 600 square miles before snow fell.

we have a trio of dispatches from public media repoon what communities are facing right now. >> irt maggie nolan, i re for the mount west news bureau in wyoming, and i have been covering wildfires in this region for the last four years. so the wildfire season inhe mountain west has really been varied. for example, idaho has had a fairly average season, whereas somewhere like colorado, andwe even wyomingave seen some historic fires. the molan fire we the biggest wyoming has ever seen, and of course in colorado the cameron peak fire is the biggest colorado has ever s its recorded history. alsothe east troublesome fily. that retook off and is currently at 192,000 acres. of course, evacuations are never easy, but they're made even mor complicaring a pandemic. you can't really use the usual playbook. you can't squeeze people into ma ium, so it's meant folks

having to shuffle into mohel or hotel rooms or stay with family or friends that they know, but not everyone has families in those areas. recently, snow fell in colorado, which was a huge blessing. it helped reallycool down that fire activity and really give a benefit to these firefighters that are out there. but, you know, where those real hot spots, where there's really dense vegetation, those hot spots might be smoldering well into the fall. >> i'm sharoni' mcnarym a correspondent for kpcc, southern california public radio. i've been covering fires for and this has been a record year for fires in california. a lot of the place where's fires burn in southern california are places where homes have been built right into the foothills and the mountains. the homes don't w burn,to burn, and they're, like, right next to each other. and the firighters are literally going into people's backyards with hodses , you

know, chain saws to keep the fire from overrunning the houses. when y have a fire like the bob cat fire that started september 6 in the midst of a heat wave, it put so much smoke and ash into the air, the air quality levels were some of the unhealthiest that we've seen in decades. and wearing your mask, glowft for the covid, but to keep the ash out of your lungs. >> my name is caspondra. i'm a er and producer at oregon public broadcasting. this year in oregon, we had the most destructive wildfire seas in our state's history.n we had more ta million acres reat burned in 30 different fithat were all burning at the same time. there were thousands of homes and buildings that were destroyed. there were entire towns that were wiped out. i went dowhen to towns of mill was happening down there, and

when i arred the sky was just this realy ominous da red, and it was maybe 11:00 in the morning, and it was basically like night time. climate change really has everything to do with why these wildfires are burning so long and why they're burning hotter. 97% of colorado right now is in severe to exceptionaldrought. another problem has been the it's be a real problem with the molen fire. they bore into these ees and they feed from them, and most of the time the tree end up dying as you have theseuge forests these huge mountainsides that are basically tixender because they're covered in dead trees. so it makes those fires burn a lot faster and really a lot hotter. i think for a lot of folks, pecially scientists, they imagine that what we saw this summer is really ju going to become the new normal. wildfire season is just going co beme longer. it's going to become more

intense. >> right now we're deali with different kinds of problems that are left over fr all the destruction. officials are very concerned about the winter weather roreading pollution fburned out buildings, creating landslides in the areas that have burned. we have thousands of peoplewho don't have homes this winter. and many of them are eager to rebuild. oregon really hasn't had this kind of wildfire season before, where there's so much destruction, and so we're just beginning to grapple with some of the bigger questions of are there areas where maybe we shouldn't rebuild because there areto going be wildfire prone in the future. if this kind of wildfire season is going to be part of our future with climate change, what should we be changing to avoi having so much destruction? >> in the long range, the questions real are how are we going to ensure our homes against lans? what are state and local governments going to do to keep

us from building into ever-more pe.lous plac when there's pressure for more home building and pressure for more place places to live like . >> woodruff: with election day 2020 just five days away, the efforts to protect american elections and the systems they rely on from foreignte erence is a daily struggle. last night, we looked at the impact of domestic misinformation on america's voters. tonight, the btle with foreign interference. in a moment, nick schifrin speaks with the top u.s. counterintelligence official charged with combating foreign attacks on america's systems. but first, here's nick with some background, on foreign disinformati.

>> reporter: in 17 wn protestors mocked president trump with french revolutionary fervor... >> when the beating of your heart echoes the beating of the drum... >> reporter: .ey didn't realize they'd been duped by. russian trolls fake russian facebook accounts called on americans to protest in real life, after the election. in fact, russian efforts in the u.s. never stopped. but by 2020, they evolve >> i think the difference that we're seeing from disinformatio2 16 coming from russia and what we're seeing today is that russia's kind of been forced underound. >> reporter: nina jankowicz is the wilson center's disinfortion fellow. she says russian tactics have changed, but the strategy remains the same. >> the goal is to cause chaos and dirust in the stitutions that govern our democracy and frankly, to cause discord between americans thmsves. >> reporter: in the last month the f.b.i. and socanal media comps exposed two russian disinformation operations that

posed as news sites: peacedata, which disparaged vice esident biden from the left, and the newsroom for american and european based citizens, which fueled right-wing outrage. both sites hired real, unwittinc ams to try and provide authenticity. and both sites' had photos of supposed "editors"-- which weren't real people, but generated by artificial intelligence. >> they were trying much harder to be convincing rher than creating lots and lots of very edgy troll accounts. >> reporter: ben nimmo is thein stigations editor at grahpika, and worked with social media companies to expose the sites. he says both highlighted t election, and naebc claimed the election would be fraudulent. >> lots of claims of hundreds of thousands of ballots boing missing ng trashed or being delivered to the wrong people or people getting multiple ballots >> i think that mail in voting is a terrible thing. >> reporter: last week iran did the same, amplifying prestent rump. a video sent to democrats falsely claimed votaterases had been hacked. the u.s. government says iranian

actors used publicly ale data to convince americans the election's more vulnerable than it really is. russia has done the same. >> rathegr than actually gett in our voting systems, they can create the perception that they were in them. anat is a way to creat environment of distrust toward the election infrastructure, toward the election certification proces >> reporter: it's important to have perspective. in 2016, the internet research agency located in this st. petersburg building, created posts that were shared in the u.s. 31 million times, liked 39 million times, and received 3.5 million comments. today's efforts reach a fraction of that audience tha to early detection by intelligence services, working with social media companies and researchers. >> that change has been one of the most radical shifts to ensure that we're finding these operatns earlier and tackling them earlier. >> reporter: nathaniel gleicher is facebook's head ecof cybeity policy. >> these operations are getting

caught sooner. and they're notg theer people impact and the effect at i'm sure the actors behind them want. we all need to be awarhae this s ening, but we also need to recognize that it's not as widespread as many people think. >> it's much harder for th trolls to get away with the kind of thing they tried in 2016. t and that meanshey have to try harder. >> reporr: in europe, russia tried forgeries. russian actors created a fake senator marco rubio twnd fake buzzfeed posts in three languages, to spread the false story britain spied on president trump. there was a fake committee to protect journasts letter, aen fake se on foreign relations committee letterthe fear is, those tactics could come to the u.s. if the election is disputed >> russia is, you know, nailing our internal fissures, ally manipulating them, amplifying them, whereas the stuff that we see coming from china and iran is aittle bit more bumbling. >> reporter: and u.s. intelligence officials tell pbs newshour russian actors successfully hacked government and commercial networks in at

least two states, although the election wasn't their main target. and that brings us to william evanina, director of theti al counterintelligence and security center, and the intelligence community's coordinator to secure the election, william evanina, welcome to the newshour. just yesterday, the f.b.i. announced an imminent cybercrime threat to american hospitals. cybersecurity firms say it's a ransomware attack that's already hobbled at least five medical centers and was launched by russian actors. can you tell us who's behind the attack? and what's the motivation? >> what i can tell you and your viewers at we have seen a systemic processing of rveillance and penetrations by nation state threat actors to include russia into o critical infrastructure of the last few years. and that critical infrastructurl ha been a hospital situations in our research andpm devet, particularly with the onset of covid and the amount of research and development to a coveredhy prctic to a vaccine. we've seen a lot of our nation

states t including russia, make attempts to not only steal that vaccine, but cause chaos in our suppl chain to further the vaccine implementation. >> reporter: beyondovid. just last week, we saw the intelligence community saying th russian actors have targeted dozens of government and commercial networle that aren'tion related, but they did get access to some voter information. some of these were successful. how successful, were they and how serious were those attacks? >> we've see for multiple years, foreign adversaries like russia, china and iran have been surveilling and attempting to penetrate our critical infrastructu across a wide swath of infrastructure, from the economic sector to the hospital sectors to the critical infrastructure and financial systems. two countries, rsia and iran, both exfiltrated data from election infrastructure. however, only one of them, i think, as we get through the infrastructure surveillance perspective, some of that might have been by accident,ut the fact they took it also drives

that wedge of interference and sowing discord and confusion of the capability to do that. >> reporr: and so just to be clear, how much data have the russians and iranians stolen from voters that wasn't ready public? >> we're still looking at that right now as we speak. we're trying to identify if thea aken by russian and iran was also available publicly. but right now, all we know is both nations took voter data registration informationt rom places tere election related infrastructure. the russian penetration was pa of an overall cyber activity where they're just doing a lot tr penetration and surveillance of critical infrture. >> reporter: you mentioned 2016. we've gotten indepdent reports from the justice department, from the senate intelligence committee that it deta russian hackers, how russian successfully tapped int the voter registration files in two florida counties penetratedo illinoisr registration database. and there were also reports of

dozen cases by ourou.ut half a why should voters be confident that, as they won't actually use that data this time? >> well, i think that confidence is a really important word, and what we're trying to really drive here is voter confidence, knowing that you should vote and you should vote with confidence. two anecdotes of that, nick, i'll bring back the last week. so in a matter of 24 hours, we had intelligence that we derivsd ov of a foign actorot exfiltrating data registration and putting it into nefarious action.we within 24 hourollected that information, we analyzed it, were able to get on the ground in two separate counties and drive litigation with the local authorities to prevent any additional impact to not only the election infrastructure, bu those vogistration files. as of right now, where we sit today, we're very conde that our adversaries will not be able to manipulate any votes or change any votes at scale. >> reporter: you just mentioned

e words at scale, but some of these states might be very close.ne are you concperhaps about a small attack that could, you know, sway results one way or the other? >> the american voter will determine whthey're going to vote for when they pull that lever. potential ransomwaacke have is a where systems are shut down and we're unable to process votes in a timely fashion so when i say at scale, i mean, the numbers of dozens.the, i i don't think that's capable. i think our assessments andh. assessments ha been very-- on that point that that's not po >> reporter: you mentioned the announcement last week by your boss, director of national intelligence, john ratcliffe, abouan iranian campaign that had a video and emails attached. to radcliffe announced that it was design to hurt president trump. you haveaid you in a statement in the past that iranian actors were trying to hurt president trump. but i was told that night that radcliffe's prepared remarks did not make the assessment that

that particular campaign was designed to hurt psient trump. was there an intellige community assessment that thatai ca was designed to hurt the president? >> well, nick, on that que i can only comment to the actual effects and impact of last week with respect to what happened with iran's intentions. the iranians truly believe that to enact regime ch so is trying logically, they are anti-this administration. when you get into the semantics of whether they're for president ttrump or for vice presid biden, i think we lose a little bit of the solemness of the threat. so your question is valid, but i rndest to sow discord andvep our really destabilize our democracy any way possible. >> reporter: you've released two major statements over the last few months discussing russian, chinese and iranian threats. isn't it russia that possesses the best capacity and presents the biggest threat for the

election itself? >> i would i would coirm that, yes, i think, i have been very clear about this as a kind o the u.s. that, from an election perspective, russia poses the greatest threat. they're the best tools, capabilities and intent. right-- democracy really scares vladimir putin and the rusblan estaishment that's been known. but i will also say in my thunterintelligence hat on chinese communist party poses the greatest natiol security risk to our nation. >> reporter: the cyber command with the national security ency have launched offensives against f toreign actors last few months and years. i know you're not able to speak about the specifics, but how successful have those attacks been? >> very successful, and they occur on a regular basis. and at we learned in 2018 is we can be successful defending our democracy and our elections we incorpate overseas in the battlespace. >> reporter: are you concerned d at foreign actors could try

and sow discord aos on election night and in the days after the election, especially if it's close? >> absolutely. i think it's important for viewers understand the ultimate goal of russia and iran is to sow discord and to be able to destabilize a democracy, both those regimes. their biggest kryptonite is democracy. so anything they can do in any manner to destabilize the democracy and continue to sow discord and drive wedges iour society is their ultimate goal. and that comes with a million >> reporter: bill evanina. thank yohavery much. >>s, nick, thanks for the opportunity. >> oodruff: much of the focus right now is on the marquee contests on the ballot: the rae for president, and the competitive races that couldl determine cont the u.s. house and senate. but policies and agendas at the state level are on the line as

well. amna nawaz looks at some of the other ballot items that vers across the country are considering. >>sawaz: in a number of sta voters are weighing in on ballot measures on a range of tics-- everything from election reform to issues having to do witrace and racial equality. and they're also voting on who should represent them in theirn ate legislatures. here to walk us through the details and trends, is reid wilson of "the hill." reid, welcome back to the newshour. good to see you. and thanks for making the time. let's start with some of the ballot measures, it can be o good way see how they'reti resi at the state and local level. is that making its way on to ballot measures this year? >> absolutely. we've seen election reform start in state legislatures over the last deovcadee to the courts in recent years, and now voters are getting to have their y. voters in states like massachusetts and alaska will decide on whether to im

ranked choice voting, which is a pretty ininnovative way of conducting elections without a runoff. voters in othr states are deciding wheer or not to create independent redistricting commissions which would take the power to draw political lines out of the hands of state legislatures. and vors in other states, three in particular, colorado, alabama, and florida, are goingw to vote hether to require only citizens vote in their local elections. now, of course, only citizens can vote in local and national this is sort of one of those efforts to get more conservative voters out to the polls in st the last few days before election day. >> nawaz: and we should mention sothing like different states have ballot measures that could redefine wvoting practices in somay on the ballot this year. are there ootther trendsher topics that you're seeing that are catching your attention this year thars haven't in yast that are new in some way? >> one thing i'm seeing is what i call the antiracist bucket of ballot initiatives.

there are a lot of state that still contain some prettyy arcane language that has been sort of overturned by federal courts or superceded by the u.s. constitution. will be asked whether to taker segregationist language out of their state conution,which still requires separate schoolst for wh and nonwhite children. they'll be asked to strip that, even though it hasn't beefon ced or implemented for more than half a search rue now. in states like nebraska and utah, voters will be asked to end part oftheir constitution that still allows slavery as a punishment for some crimes. now, again, that hasn't been enforced for more than a century, but the language is still thre. and then in mississippi, we're going to see ifvoters rata new flag with the magnolia flower designlaking the pace of the old battle standard, and message that will elect the governor directly rather than

alrequiring the gubernato candidate to win a majority in state house districts, sort of their version of the electoral college. it was a jim crow era way of making sure no black candidate could ever win the governorship in mississippi. so they're going to vota that this year. >> naz: we should meion the pandemic has obviously upended the way millions of is it having any kind of impact on ballot measures and initiatives that u're acking, too? >> we have seen fewer ballot measures qualify for the bahillt year, and that's because when the pandemic hit in march a april, that's prime signature-gathering times. if tre are no big fairs or sporting events or areas where a lot of people congregate it will signatures.rder to collect there were a lot of ballot measures across the country where the campaign said we'll n wait untxt year when it's safer to collect signatures.ve >> nawaz: s a little bit of a landscape what you're seeing in races across the country. is there anything you're seeing telling us how to understand some of ene national tr? >> and i think we're seeing a lot of the national trends

playing out in state legislative seats. democrats are still trying to make comebacks from having lost so badly in the 2010 midterm elections. the following cycle, republicans redistricted a lot tsof s around the country, and, therefore, they've held on to big majorities in state legislatures, about two-thirds of the state legislatures across the country.this year, if a deme develops and democrats take back a lot lot of those seats, that's going to matter a lot in terms of not just what a state looks like for the next 10 years, but what the u.s. congress looks like for the next 10 years. thetr redting cycle is going to begin come january. if democrats have a seat at a lot of those tables in states like texas, states like nororth na, wisconsin, pennsylvania, they're going to be able to draw some districts that willffectively lock in a democratic u.s. house of representatives for de de >> nawaz: those are states we're all going to be watching very closely over the next few days andlection day and n iight. thatreid wilson,

correspondent with "the hill" joining us tonight. thank you so much, reid. >> thank you. >> woodruff: the supreme court is proving to be a key piece of the 2020 election in these final days. just this week, the court has handed down rulings on absentee ballot deadlines in three key battleground states. john yang has more. >> yang: judy, late yesterday, the court said new deadlines for mail-in ballots could take effect in north carolina and ballots can arrive as late as friday, the 6th; in north carolina, it's thurshe 12th. lirlier in the week, the court blocked a new de in wisconsin. amy coney barrett di't participate in any of the cases, but that doesn't signal her resal in future election cases. the newshour's dan bush has been

focusing on the important state of pennsylvania. dan, the wayhings are shaping up, pennsylvania could be 55ical. oven what the curt did yesterday, what does that mean? what do mean for voters in pennsylvania? >> john, this could have a big impact in a critical battleground state. so what the cort did was allowed voters who postmarked 8eir mail-in or absentee ballots by0 p.m. on election day, those votes can be counted if they're received by 5:00 p.m. on friday. so three days later. that could potentially be significantly more votes. though, john, and that is that the supreme court ruling left the door wide open for a legal challenge after the election. so while these votes will count right now, thecould wind up back in court. and, nally, john, this is important because pennsylvania could be a very, very close ate.

four years ago, donald trump carried pennsylvania by 44,2 votes out of more than six legal cast. so for both sides, every vote count count if it's a close race. >> and even before the court acted yesterday, the secretary of state put out a guidance to board of elections arounthe state about how to handle those ballots. what was that all out? >> that's right. so the secretary of state's officials, "listen, put these votes aside. these mail-in absentee ballots that come in after election day, and wait count them." th was in anticipation of a potential legal battle. so the thinking isere if you separate those votes out, they'll be easier to find. they'll be easier to tracif they do wind up back in court. so whection officials are telling me, john, they are going to keep a close watch on those. theye going to collect them, put them to the side, and wait until 5:00 p.m. on the fridav the election day, at which point

they can begin to prenv them, process them, and then count them. >> and we should point out some of these ballots are ovryerseas miliallots as well soap that's the ballots that come after 8:00 p.m. on election day an before 6:00 p.m. on friday. what about the ballots that are arriving now when will those be processed? so under pennsylvania state law, mail-in and absentee ballots can't begin to be what--e precanvas, rm is, or taken out of their envelopes, verified, scanned-- until 7:00 a.m. on election right now, county officials have told me they have been receivg these for a while now. they are stacked up in secure locations. they are ready to be prounssed and d. but they can't begin to do that until 7:00 a.m. onio eleat a, and they say that might make it significantly harder to finish that process and put up results that are dealing with a record number of mail-in and absentee ballots because of the pandemic from

vors who did not want to-- you know, come in and cast a ballot those are the mail-in votes. the in-person votes,sh, those e folk are folks that are going to go to the polls in pennsylvania, which dot have early in-person voting, on election day, and thosbe officials can to count when polls close at 8:00 p.m. >> glen that e of mail-in ballots and absentee ballots from overseas, given what you just said habout when can start to be counted, a lit gtle viewerde for us, what should people at home as they watch the results from pennsylvaa election night, and maybe beyond, what should they be keeping in mind about howth e numbers may change? >> so, wekn from national surveys that republicans say they're more likely to vote in person. democrats say ty're more likely to vote by mail. we can expect a significant amount of republican verts, especially in western part niof pennsylv to cast ballots in person.

those early results could be good for presidet trump. however, as i said, because there are so mamail-in ballots and because the state can't begin to cou unt themil 8:00 p.m., officials have been telling me, listen, this could take a long time. it could take into the night. it could take into the next day. so we do expect thots resto begin to shift on wednesday when those ballots are counted. >> dan bun will be i pennsylvania on election night for the newshour. dan, thanks a lot. >> thanks, john. ht>> woodruff: finally ton just how are states and local governments checking thef accuracye vote? it's obviously an enormous issue this sen . miles o'br back tonight with a report on one approach that's designed to help silify a big challenge awting officials next week.

>> we're trying to have minimal waste in the kitchen. this is the carrot tops, carrot greens. >> reporter: at his house amid the trees in tilhe of berkeley california, mathematician phil stark reis ning a recipe. >> it's a vegetable soup.e it's homemock from whever leftover bones i've accutelated. >> rep ...for adding ingredients of trust and the united states.lections in he's the originator of a big idea to makeost election audits much easier. it's called a risk limitinghn audit, a tue that remin him of cooking, and tastinge soup, or in xicon of mathematics, "random sampling." >> so, what is a random sample and why can you learn something about a big group by looki at just a small sample from the group. >> reporter: after a good stirring, a tablespoon is all that he needs for a taste test. >> i don't need to drink some

fixed rcentage of the pot to tell if salty enough. i need about a tablespoon regaless of how the big pot is if i stir it well. >> reporter: colorado was the firsstate to mandae risk nevada, rhode isla and7. virginia have followed suit. in all, 46 states have some sort of auditing regime in ace, b most are the traditional types which require retrieviuch larger sample of ballots.ns we went to bruwick, georgia in ptember to see how a ris limiting audit works outside the kitchen. it was a pilot audit of a state senate runoff election. monica childers showed the ropeo ocal officials. she's with a non-partisan, non- profit called "voting works" focused on building secure, open source voting and auditing systems. >> so, whenever we go into a state, we try and do a number of local pilots of the process, so

the election administrators can wet and actually gerience feet with what we're doing. >> reporter: these audits typically begin with volunteer voters rolling ten 10-sided dice to generate a truly random number. >> so why do we use dice? therare several reasons. first of all, we want the audit to be random. we wanunpredictability. we want genuine probability so that we can do probability calculations, but then we alsoy want transpared reproducibility and to the extent possible public rticipation. >> reporter: the random number is fed into stark's formula, or algorithm. so is the number of ballots for each candidate and the desired accuracy. the formula determines how many randomly selected ballots need to be located and double-checked in order to give certainty to the outcome. in an audit like this, the total number of baots is not what's important-- it's the margin

between the candidates. if theargin is wide, only a very small number of ballots may need to be reviewed. >> at some pnt it will become convincing evidence that that entity, that person, that position on the ballot got more votes. you can't say ahead of time how many ballots you're going tt have to lookd all, because it depends on what you see. >> reporter: got it, okay. so that is not actually confirming the margin necessarily, it's justconfirmin. >> it is, exactly. >> reporter: i mean that's the important point here.el >> absol you hit the nail on the head. we are not auditing the exact count. we are just auditing the political outcome, who won. >> reporter: in the glynn county's portion of the state senate runoff, 8,814 ballots were cast and the marg between the two candidates was 1,668 votes. they stopped the risk limiting audit after locating a hand counting 119 ballots. it was enough toive them a 99.66% condence that the

monica childers isnfident the audit would have caught any meaningful discrepay,o matter the cause. >> it could be that an election s hacked, it could be t tabulator developed a bug in thr ramming, it could be that the eye of the scanner got some dirt on it and so it wasn't scanning as well as it was at the beginning of the process, it doesn't matter. any of those things can be theat cause of a tabn error, if that tabulation error is great enough that it would have changed the outcome, a risk- limiting audit will catch it >> reporter: but will it?ng georgia is amo 14 states using a hybrid between paper and electronic voting machines-- touchscreen computers that print marked ballots. and with a computer between voter and baot, there is no true record of what choices appeared on the screen, or whether what's in the q.r. or barcode read by the tabulating scanner matches the voter's choices. >> if ballot marking devic were used to mark the bulk of the ballots, then we're never

going to know what the right outcome is, even a full hand count of the paper isn't going to reveal that necessarily. that said, it's still better to audit than not to audit. of the process we can check.ikce >> reporter: uthe soup. which looked like a sure thing to me. although after tasting it, i thought of demanding a recount. for the pbs newshour, i'm miles o'brien in berkeley, california. >> woodruff: first time wnnve seen soup ted to counting the vote. thank you, miles o'brien.at and the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you, please stay fe, and see you soon. >> maj funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

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>> this program was made possible by thcorporation for blic broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> there is no paralr this election in 2020. >> the entire point is get past the headlines, get past the name call. >> we can go deeper into topics. everything isn't necessarily red or blue. >> we need to understand what's going on. we need to go behind the story and under the story. >> not just to find out what happened but why it matters. >> 2020 will be a little roller scoter. but an count on pbs to be there every step of the way. newshour produtions, llc

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hello, everyone. welcome to "amanpour & co." here's what's coming up. >> i'm running as a democrat but i will gover as an american president. >> biden'taly different message of unity for a nation divided under trump. i asked e osnos about his biography. >> we are talking about a serious offline threat in terms of the numberf wom who have been killed by these men. >> not just everyday exism but mysogyny. i talk to her about her new book. then -- >>re w pre precipice of one