good day to you. i'm ari melber with continuing msnbc special election coverage. we're expecting more results to come in this hour. we have a presidential race that as you know has come all the way down to the wire. let me go through what's happening. it's a lot right now. at the moment, the biden campaign telling reporters they see a path to victory as, quote, imminent. the trump campaign continuing an aggressive intervention strategy in the courts. here's the numbers. nbc projecting biden has won 253 electoral votes on this map. six states remain uncalled. biden has a number of paths that

would get him to the magic 270. we're looking at the razor-thin margins. we're awaiting a press conference. there's a lot of developing news. in nevada, biden is clinging to a lead. and we are looking to hear from officials there in the pivotal area of clark county. that could come any moment. we'll bring it to you when that happens. the lion's share of nevada's outstanding vote will come from clark county. we do know that. in the last hour, more votes began trickling in. biden adding slightly to the lead you see there. if biden holds nevada and wins the six electoral votes he'd be 11 electoral votes from 270 which brings us to arizona which has, you see there at the top of your screen, exactly 11 electoral votes. so right now, biden also clinging to a small lead. president trump chipping away at that gap with the new votes coming in. to be clear, that's one path, and it would be a perfect 270. biden does not need nevada or

arizona if he goes on to win pennsylvania. democrats are very confident these remaining ballots, primarily from the generally democratic philadelphia area, they believe will put biden over the top. also a live look at mail-in ballots being processed in philly. pretty orderly. the count was halted momentarily. that was earlier this morning because there were disputes about the monitoring that we're getting different reports as to whether that count is still halted or not. you see what i see here. 1:02 p.m. in philadelphia. clearly some action in that room. and we're going to see what happens with court orders today about how they continue that process. then to georgia. here we are days out from election day and look at how close this is. this is remarkable. the state secretary of state telling us this morning there are only 50,000 ballots left. and you can see how tight that is. officials tell us the counties will finish counting around noon

today and then we've got more numbers. north carolina where it's also too close to call, but from what we know, we do not expect to get a fuller picture on that until the -- basically next week. so that's a lot to take in. the bottom line is joe biden is up. it's not over. joe biden has more paths, that's why trump is suing in so many places. you sue traditionally when you're down not when you're up. you know what time it is, though. we're going to get the very latest results right now as more votes are being counted from the man, the myth, the week-long sleepless legend. steve kornacki, i know you've been crunching the numbers. a lot of folks are following this. we really are in prime election night-type vibes. might as well be midnight on election night. happens to be a few days later with kornacki giving us the latest. what do you see most important right now today? >> you mentioned pennsylvania. let's take a look inside there. throughout the afternoon we'll continue to get reports here. trump's lead statewide in

pennsylvania is still 115,000 votes. but what i'm going to do here is show you where the outstanding vote is in pennsylvania right now. and basically the bigger the bubble you see, the more votes there are still outstanding. you see, by far, the biggest one right here. this is philadelphia. we think there are probably 75,000, 85,000, 90,000 votes still to come in philadelphia. philadelphia has reported out a couple times today. it's helped biden narrow the lead. probably 80,000, 90,000 votes to come in philadelphia at least. and biden is winning these votes in philadelphia. he's winning the city right now by 80%. winning the mail ballot portion of the vote. getting like 90% of that. you can just do the math with that many outstanding votes in that one place that joe biden is winning by that large a margin. that gives him the opportunity to erase a big portion of that trump lead statewide. then you look, where else are

there outstanding ballots? we say outstanding ballots here. we're talking outstanding mail ballots. absentee ballots. these are ballots favoring biden even in areas that aren't heavily democratic. the mail ballot portion of the vote has been favoring biden. you can see right outside philadelphia, if you look, there's a bubble within the bubble here. that's delaware county right outside philadelphia. that's another big one. they've got mail vote to come. bucks county. the other circle right here. they've got mail vote to come. also allentown, lehigh county. they've got mail-in vote to come. erie. a report this morning. erie is a very good example because it's a county that overall, trump is winning. but the mail vote portion of the vote, biden is winning. so that's the dynamic at play here right now. all mail ballots and the reports are pretty much anywhere they're coming in right now are helping biden. you see the opportunity then. if philadelphia is going to erase that much of that lead for

trump and there are all those other opportunities, you see the potential pathway there for biden to overtake trump. but we wait and see for these results to come in and see if that is what happens. also i can update you in the last half hour. we've had a little bit of drama outside -- out in the state of nevada. biden's lead here now sits at 11,400 votes. obviously, that's a small lead, although, as of about 30 minutes ago, maybe 45 minutes ago, it was only 7,600. so it's actually, you know, it's increased significantly just relative to where it was. why? because we got mail ballots. we got some of the mail ballots that are outstanding in clark county. clark county is like 70% of the population of nevada. so what's happening here is really going to drive things from this point forward. we got some of the mail ballots from clark county that are outstanding and biden was winning them 2 to 1. and there are still many more

mail ballots to come from clark county. and then at the same time, a number of other rural counties in the state, plus washo county where reno is, the second largest county. i think reported out the rest of their vote and it was kind of a wash. so what you're seeing on the map in nevada right now is basically one thing jumps out. there's an opportunity there it looks like for biden potentially to gain votes. and he's already ahead. >> let me -- someone is talking to me, other than steve. steve, i did hear your hit, though. and one thing that i want to emphasize is we're waiting to hear from these las vegas clark county officials this hour. i want to be clear. everyone has been following the big board for days now. usually these officials, they speak through you or through other big boards on other networks or the ap calls. but they let the numbers do the talking and then you walk us through what they mean.

i'm curious if you can give our viewers any context on what we should be listening for when we hear what's a relatively interesting development here. nevada, on a razor's edge, within the hour we'll hear from these officials. what's on your mind for us to keep track of? >> here's what i hope comes up at this press conference and what i'll be listening for is, we say clark county is the biggest in the state. they also said they can process ballots at a pretty quick rate. they've got tens of thousands of mail-in ballots still to be reported out. they were sort of looking forward to this noon eastern time dump of votes. we all thought this would be a very big -- this was going to be a very big -- that this was going to be a very big dump of votes at noon today. and it was about 15,000. so there's a lot more to come. they've had a lot of time to process them. they told us before the election they had the means of processing them. why did they only put 15,000 out today when there's so much more to come? and then the provisionals, what

the situation with the provisional ballots is, too. exactly how many of those there are. so those are some of the questions to keep an eye on. provisional ballots and exactly how many more they expect to be able to get out soon in terms of mail. >> really important context from steve kornacki at the big board. we're going to listen in as promised, breaking news. clark county officials briefing on this razor-thin vote. let's listen in. >> obviously, we're very concentrated on trying to make sure staff can get in and out of here safely and continue to count ballots. so keep in mind that we're going to be adding security at all of our entrances and they'll only be granting access to those who are approved members of the media, members of my staff and those individuals who have business with the election department. so please keep that in mind. the purpose of being here this morning -- the work that's being done here in clark county to get the votes

counted accurately. i have counts now on what we received from the election day drop box, the u.s. postal service on election day and yesterday, and also some additional ballots that we had pending because we had to stop processing to begin getting ready for election day support. so on election day at the drop-off locations at all vote centers on the election department, 34,743 ballots dropped off. the u.s. postal service, as of election day and yesterday brought to us 4,208 ballots. 24,311 ballots that were pending when we stopped processing to get ready for election day. so that brings us to 63,262. today -- has already begun counting.

a little over 51,000 ballots that will be reported tomorrow prior to my 10:00 a.m. brief. it's important that everybody understand that there are also additional ballots that are pending. outside of what i just described. so i'm briefly going to go through those. the provisional ballots that were cast during the early voting and election day, the first announcement that i need to make is that the posting that was placed on our website on election night and yesterday was incorrect. we determined that our tabulation software was incorrectly duplicating those records and so the 120,000 that you may have seen on our website is an incorrect number. that has been corrected. and the post on our website now at www.clarkcountynv.gov/vote is correct. and that ballot number, a little over 60,000.

we have -- we have to coordinate very closely with the secretary of state. we are a bottom-up, not a top-down voter registration jurisdiction. and so all 17 counties need to send information to the secretary because there's not one single database that we all draw from. we all have our own. so in coordinate with the secretary of state, we're awaiting instructions from them on when to send our provisional listing up to them because we need to make absolutely certain that nobody who has casted a provisional ballot here in clark county has done so in another county. so we're waiting instructions from them on when to send that report so we can make that verification. staff is still currently working on all of those provisional ballots to make determinations as to whether the voter was eligible to cast that provisional ballot. that work will be ready once we notify the secretary of state

and it is an automated process to pass those provisional ballots into the tabulation system. we have a group of voters who are i.d. required for one reason or another. the deadline for those voters to get back to us is friday, november 6th, at 5:00 p.m. so that is another group of ballots that we will need to put into the system once they have come in to provide their i.d. the u.s. mail will continue to deliver. so starting tomorrow through next tuesday, which is the last day for us to receive a mail ballot that's been postmarked november 3rd, we will continue to receive mail. so again, those ballots are also separate from what i previously reported. the cure process in nevada which is statutorily required for those notified they either did not sign their ballot or their signature did not match in our system. they have until thursday,

november 12th to cure that ballot. the last day that we can tabulate and send ballots in to the system is november 12th. so that night we will stay here until we are done entering ballots into the system because statute clearly tells us that we must be done counting by that date. with that information, i hope that i've clarified a lot of the questions. we are anticipating to have the bulk of our mail ballot -- saturday or sunday. those ballots that are coming in through the u.s. mail or that are being cured will be a small number. and we will continue to put those in. but the bulk of our ballots we are hoping will be read by saturday or sunday this weekend. again, we won't complete until november 12th with all of those other ballots that serve as exceptions. so with that information, i have

got a short period of time here where i can answer some questions from you. [ inaudible question ] >> we're not aware of any improper ballots being processed. >> [ inaudible ]. >> not directly that i'm aware of. >> -- >> the result of the pandemic and so our process is run a little slower. we also have to make sure that our data is being updated because we need to prevent people from voting twice in the

system. and so we have to scan those in as mail received so that it updates the database so our in-person voters can't have voted twice. we're still receiving information from our election day laptops. that will be complete today. so we're going to update and make sure that all of the information was downloaded from 1300 of those laptops that were used on election day to make sure that the automated system will reject mail ballots for somebody who has voted on election day. we want to make sure that we're being accurate. the results in the state of nevada, obviously, are going to be very important to the entire country. and that is our number one goal. >> what's the outstanding number one more time? the outstanding number? >> at this point -- >> what's the total? what is the total? >> i went through a long process. how about we get together after this. >> why is it taking so long to count 70,000 a day? >> i think i just answered that question.

>> you said -- if you have the capacity, why aren't you doing it? >> because they're not available, sir. there are many steps in the process. so the first process is that we run it through our machine. then there are two manual processes and then the county board and then to tabulation. >> [ inaudible ]. >> i need you to speak up, sir. i can't hear your question. >> [ inaudible ]. >> i did not say they were already counted. i said today the staff is prepared to count 51,000 ballots that are ready to be counted today. those will be reported tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. right there, next to you. >> folks, i really need you all to speak up. i cannot hear you. >> [ inaudible ]. >> those are separate, and

that's why i listed in my statement that those are separate from the numbers that i reported first. >> [ inaudible ]. >> i don't have that number with me. >> to summarize and help us all, how many ballots are left to count? >> that's a number that i can't give you. i can't predict what's going to come through the u.s. mail. so i deliberately went through all of these numbers, and i was hoping that you all would take the information that i'm providing, but there's a set number of ballots that we know are available to be processed. and that's the 63,000. then i mentioned all of the other additional ballots. so we -- again, we plan to be able to have counted the majority of our mail ballots by saturday or sunday and then all of those other ballots that were statutorily limited, i can't count all the mail ballots until i have them. and we have to continue to accept them up until tuesday,

november 10th. >> repeat the numbers so that we were clear. it was 63,262, correct? >> that is correct. >> [ inaudible ]. the election official told her her signature had been accepted on the ballot. is it possible that someone else successfully returned her ballot -- >> i personally dealt with ms. stoke. she brought her claim to me. we reviewed the ballot and in our opinion, it's her signature. we also gave her an opportunity to provide a statement. if she wanted to provide a challenge to that. she refused to. a member of the nevada secretary of state's office investigation team also interviewed her, and they had no issue with the assistance that we tried to give her. >> do you think she's lying? >> i have nothing else to comment on that.

next question. >> [ inaudible ]. there were rallies outside the building -- >> i can tell you that my wife and my mother are very concerned for me, but we have security here. we have law enforcement who are protecting us. i am concerned for the safety of my staff. we are putting measures into place to make sure that we have the security that's necessary. again, we'll begin to monitor the vehicles as they come in to make sure that they should be here and that they are parking properly so that we don't prevent our employees from having an issue getting in and out of the facility. but i feel safe. we're going to be okay. we will not allow anyone to stop us from doing what our duty is in counting ballots. yes, right there. >> what would you say to -- the state checks the rules when they

decided to roll ballots to -- that was a violation of the old rul rules. all the counting and the process -- >> the first part of your question relates to action that was taken by the nevada legislature. i don't make policy. i'm simply an admin strator. they acted in the summer and we carried through what they prescribed for us to do. as far as your second issue, that issue has been litigated, and the judge ruled in our favor. louder, please. >> [ inaudible ]. >> those are reports that we're going to generate after the election once we start getting ready to do our canvass. so that's information that i'll have available once we've done all of our work, counted all the ballots. and if we have a group we'll be

definitely going out to arrest these people because those are obviously illegal actions. but that's an activity that needs to take place once we're done counting and getting the canvass done. >> [ inaudible ]. >> most of these voters have been notified and they voted because they voted provisionally and were told they different have the i.d. needed to do that. these are also mail ballot voters also notified they need to provide an i.d. on the envelope that's sent out to them and they failed to do so. they've been notified and the deadline is tomorrow at 5:00 p.m. there are several people who are working to actively reach out to those voters and try to help them get that i.d. yes, over here. >> [ inaudible ].

>> it depends on the status of our mail ballot process. we are running shifts at certain areas. so we work any time bearing from 5:00 a.m. up to 10:00 or 11:00 at night. we don't run a 24-hour shift that you see running in other states because the work that comes through on the mail ballot process is very deliberate as it moves forward and so we complete the work that's done in each stage and then the next day it carries forward to the next. again, i emphasize what i'm trying to report here is that clark county looks like we'll be able to count the majority of our mail ballots by saturday or sunday. however, there are other ballots as a result of statutory requirements that we'll have to continue to read because we have to take ballots until next tuesday. >> will you continue to have these briefings on saturday and sunday? >> absolute she. i will be here at 10:00 a.m. until we're done. >> do you expect the --

>> we're going to coincide with the secretary of state. i think it's very important that as a state, all 17 of the counties are working to coordinate with the secretary who is our chief election officer. so she has reported that she put out today at 9:00. we followed suit and reported today. if the secretary makes a decision not to report from here on out, we are going to have to report. so if we have results to report, we will do it on a daily basis. we're going to do a 10:00 a.m. brief to give you all an opportunity to ask questions. and our update should be posted prior to that briefing. right there. >> [ inaudible ]. >> any individual who had an issue with their mail ballot should have contacted us prior to election day. we are here to help the voter. i've been on many zoom interviews, meeting interviews, many organizational groups

throughout the county. letting them know if you have an issue with your ballot, whatever it may be, call 455-vote. however, they're past that process. the election is over. we're in the process of counting at this point. right there. >> [ inaudible ]. >> that's available on our website. i don't have that number off the top of my head but you can quickly see that on our website and in our report. right there. >> [ inaudible ]. >> i'm sorry, ma'am. i can't hear you. i'm hard of hearing and we're in a warehouse. >> [ inaudible ]. >> regardless of any reports that you're referring to, the numbers that i just gave you are the ones you should go with. don't try to calculate it for

yourself. i just told you there are 63,262. and then there are exceptions. so i can't answer any of your questions because you're drawing from data i did not calculate. >> that's not what i was to generate -- i purposely set up this interview so we could make sure and clear this up. you're drawing your data from somewhere else and want me to answer according to that number. i can't. that's why i give you this information. next question. right there. >> [ inaudible ]. how unlikely is it that a single ballot that should not have been counted has been counted? what's the likelihood? >> i can't give you a probability on that. we're firm in our commitment to making sure that we're processing ballots with high integrity in the state of nevada. a lot of that depends on anybody who is awear of something they feel that may have been nefarious, they need to notify

our office and we'll get the secretary of state involved with investigating that. we're doing everything we can to uphold the integrity of the process here in clark county. shnge >> should voters in nevada have confidence in the way you're counting the votes? >> absolutely. we're very committed here. we have a strong history in clark county of leading in our processes and the use of technology and working to keep things high in integrity with everything i do and we do as a team. credit to my staff for their commitment as well and the hours they've worked. what i really want to also hit home on, and this is for election administrators across the country. i'm sure they agree with me. we're not concerned with reading as fast as we can. we're concerned with making sure we're accurate in what we report. because this is a very important election in the state of nevada. it may make the decision for the president. so we take that very seriously. and we will make sure that we are doing everything proper. >> using your numbers and

everybody is watching and wants to be clear. 63,262, and you expect to count 51,000 today. that means most should be counted by tomorrow? >> that's not what i said. i said it many times. clark county is looking like we'll complete the bulk of our mail ballot count by saturday and sunday. after that, there are several exceptions as related to statute. i can't know what i'm going to receive in the mail next sunday, monday -- not sunday, but monday and tuesday. i'm statutorily required to count those ballots if they are postmarked by the 3rd. we have provisional ballots that are going to go in. all of the exceptions that i mentioned, those are ballots that will be counted. anybody that was eligible and casted a ballot and provided us anything they need to provide, their ballot will be counted by november 12th. >> [ inaudible ]. >> did i -- i don't have observers. it's the general public that comes in and observes. i don't have observers.

>> [ inaudible ]. >> you need to speak up, ma'am. >> [ inaudible ]. >> absolutely not. we've been working close with all parties who have been interested in observing our activities. in fact, we have gone above and beyond what the statute calls for us to do. the only thing clark county needs to do, required by law, is to provide access to anyone who wants to observe us counting. we realize with the engagement by the general public in this election that there were going to be concerned and probably want to see more so we, as a courtesy provided more observation opportunities in other rooms. now these groups have also been contacted on a regular basis and they continue to say that we're not communicating with them. we started communicating with

them in the month of august and september. and we made clear to them exactly what we would do. we set up a schedule to count. and it's a worst case scenario because we want to make sure that we've got all of our bases covered and that we're going to have staff available to complete each task, each step every day. obviously, my staff is getting better at what i do because i've been doing it over 20 days you. if we finish before our scheduled time and there's no more work, they're done. so we have notified observers who have come up. there's nothing to observe. we've gone so far as to tour them and take them to see the area to confirm that there's nothing going on. unfortunately, there are some observers that come through that take it upon themselves to go into areas they're not allowed to cue, interact with our workers, which they're not allowed to do. we clearly communicate to them exactly what they can and can't do with observers. so, no, we've done everything we possibly can in clark county to allow observers to participate.

>> point of clarification -- >> one more question. we're going to take -- >> the ballots reported today -- were the ballots reported today, same day mail ballots or both. >> what do you mean? >> same-day voting? >> you mean registration. >> voting in person. >> all of the in-person votes are in the system. >> so ballots reported today were drop off or vote by mail? >> they are ground in different areas. i can't tell you exactly which ballots went in and got counted? >> how come you aren't able sossto say that. what i'm telling you is exactly what we know is left. could be a combination of drop-off ballots, things left in the mail. that's all we really have left at this point. >> but reporting today was not in-person -- >> again, in-personi ining repog was reported on election night. all of the in-person votes are

in the system. >> understood. thank you, sir. >> thank you very much. we'll see you tomorrow morning. >> we have been listening to an elections update in the critical area of clark county, the las vegas area, of nevada. i want to bring in steve kornacki to walk through what we know. i'll tell viewers, at timesing this was an update almost unnecessarily ornery but the difference is the level on the screen. 11,438. 11,438, steve, put that crucial margin now in the context of what we just heard which was a relatively small number. about 63,000 left and most of those will be released tomorrow. >> that's the part i was having trouble understanding what he was saying there. there was a lot of testiness going back and forth. was he saying that 51,000 would be released tomorrow or was he saying that there was a group of 51,000 they were ready to begin

counting now, and he was confident by saturday, sunday he would get those all out. that -- i had some confusion. i think those reporters in the room had. we can take a step back and there's clarity that emerges from this press conference. >> and, steve, i'll say for viewers, and i agree with you, it was at times murky, but what i wrote down so this is one person's notes. you'll walk us through it. but i wrote down he said 51,000 will be reported tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. so at one point he indicated that, which for viewers is relative what you are about to walk through for susthat we are going to learn very soon the dribs and drabs at the very end of this nevada count. >> they are sitting on what's basically left in nevada right now. clark county is. it's the biggest one so they always have the most votes anyway. but we just watched all these other counties report out most of what they had left. and you are still sitting on

tens of thousands of votes here in clark county in a race where joe biden leads by 11,000 statewide. what he is saying is he had ballots that were received in the mail on election day or nevada is one of the states where this can happen. ballots that have continued to arrive in the mail since then. plus, absentee ballots, mail ballots that people got at their homes but then drove into the poll places on election day or drove to the drop-off boxes on election day. that is the type of vote that he's talking about here and again, he's saying tens of thousands left to be reported out. one thing i would say is, we did get a report of some of these from them this morning. i think it was about 12,000 to 15,000. about 15,000 that they reported out this morning from clark county. in that group, biden was winning 2 to 1. so this is the type of ballot, you know, in a county like clark

county, democrats have some strength there, in a county like that, you've been seeing across the country the mail-in ballots, the absentee ballots, tend to favor the democrats. so there's been some expectation as we approach the release of these clark ballots today, at least some of them, that they would favor democrats. in the initial numbers they gave us, they released them justice before he gave this press conference. the initial numbers definitely suggest we're on to something in thinking that because biden led them 2 to 1, and i think you look at what's left there. mail absentee clark county, that's pretty much the state right there. so it looks like they'll draw this out. but the clear trajectory here seems to be somewhat clear trajectory seems to be these look like biden favorable votes yet to come here. >> steve, i think we're bringing in jo kent on the ground. we'll try to keep you up. we're doing this live as we go along. i'd love for you and jo to talk this through. we're not calling anything,

obviously, but jo, build on what steve is saying. i'm going to be even less technical and say the type of numbers we just heard suggest good news for biden as this moves forward. >> ari, historically, the mail-in vote, which they are still very much receiving here in clark county, has historically gone towards the democrats here. but what is really interesting about the 51,000 votes that the clark county registrar says they're going to announce tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. local time is that this facility and this county has the capacity to count more than that. they can count 70,000 votes a day. but instead, the registrar was very specific about how many votes they are going to release tomorrow. so i thought that was a very interesting point we should take a closer look at. i asked him, why is it going so, perhaps, slowly in the words of some critics out there.

and he said they're not worried about speed here in clark county. they just want to get it right. and they want to make sure they have it done properly. and so it seems like that is the philosophy underlying the reason why they are releasing 51,000 tomorrow instead of perhaps more. but what we do know is that all of the mail votes coming in now, they have until november 10th, and he kept reiterating that they are still receiving these ballots. so they expect, the registrar fully expects that there's going to be more coming in up until that date as long as they are postmarked on or before election day. it was a very interesting dynamic listening to the registrar. clearly very different than yesterday. one more thing to point out is that the trump campaign had that presser in which they took none of our questions about why they are alleging miscounting and improper issues in terms of the clark county vote. i asked the clark county

registrar what his response was and he says they have no evidence, no report of any improper or misleading issues when it comes to counting the actual vote right now. so he very much waved us off of that, denying, disagreeing with the trump campaign's allegations that were presented without evidence. >> right. that's an important point because we've been focused on the numbers, and rightly so. the other two headlines from the press conference is what you just reminded us. that's a public official. they're not pro either candidate. but they are dismissing one set of legal allegations, offered without evidence by the trump team which is suing in several places. the other point we hadn't gotten to is, jo, there were questions fielded about security. do you want to speak about that? >> yes. the registrar was asked about the security of the vote and the people who work here. there's about 300 people working here up from the normal 30 or so. he said his wife and his mother are concerned for his safety but

more importantly, he is concerned as a registrar, for the safety of the staff. they are working with law enforcement to secure this area more thoroughly. and i will say, you can feel that anxiety and that increased level of security here on the property. and they now plan to be screening some of the vehicles that were able to, until now, drive in to a public lot. so the sense of security is heightened perhaps because we did see people supporting president trump demonstrating here last night. there were some demonstrators out here today. there were also some pro-biden supporters late last night, as well. so you're seeing this magnifying of this place here. i want to point out one quick thing. there is some vote counting going on right here and some certification ongoing as we stand here and continue to wait for those critical numbers, ari. >> jo, thank you very much. steve, a couple of lines.

wrap this all up on the margin and when we'll know more about nevada. >> if you are a democrat, you feel very good this election in nevada has come down to clark county and mail-in ballots. and you feel doubly good because the results we've gotten from that group so far have been 2 to 1 for biden and, by the way, biden is already leading statewide. it just might take awhile to get them all counted here. >> a fair point. steve, i don't know about you, but i'm committed to covering as many local press conferences as needed until america gets all the facts. >> that's a good idea. >> steve kornacki, jo on the ground, jacob soboroff also out there reporting for us. we'll fit in our first break of the hour. a lot more coming up. new legal actions. claims of victory. updates from key states. and both campaigns weighing in on what remains an open election. we'll come right back. are you packed yet? our flight is early tomorrow. and it's a long flight too. once we get there, we will need...

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welcome back to our special election coverage. i'm ari melber. we've spent the bulk of the hour following breaking news in nevada where there was a press conference from local officials. nevada is one of the states that would have to link up with others to push joe biden over 270 or help trump come back. we turn to a state with 20 electoral votes, pennsylvania. chris jansing has been reporting there in pennsylvania and joins us now. plenty to get to. let's start with the latest in

the count. chris? >> yeah, so it's changed dramatically in the favor of joe biden. yesterday morning it was about 600,000 favoring the president. it's down, as steve kornacki has been reporting, to about 115,000. the democrats like what they are seeing, obviously, coming out of the two big cities and the counties surrounding them, pittsburgh and philadelphia. you know, there are a couple of court cases holding things up in both of those places. a legal challenge in philly about the distance that some observers would have to keep. so they had to suspend while they were reconfiguring things. and then in lackawanna county, where pittsburgh is, there's still about 35,000 outstanding votes. those are not going to be counted today because about 29,000 of them, as part of a court settlement, are going to be looked at tomorrow at 5:00 p.m. those are ones that were misprinted. they gave people second ballots. those are going to be reviewed.

the other 6,000 sort of normal issues that they've had with some of those ballots. they'll start looking at those at 9:00 tomorrow morning to rule on those. but there's been a lot of activity behind me. let's take a look and show you what's going on. the tensions are high because so much is at stake here. these are pro-trump protesters who are saying what the president has been saying, stop the vote. now that's particularly interesting here because, as you know, the state enacted new laws that allow people's mail-in ballots to be counted for up to three days. that's 5:00 tomorrow afternoon. they are saying that's not legal. they are trying to steal the vote which, of course, not only isn't true, but is ignoring the fact that that legislation that allowed the extension for mail-in ballots to come in was actually passed as bipartisan legislation and an amendment put forward by a republican. but just a few moments ago,

there was a supporter of joe biden who went up and said lock him up. he had a big sign with a picture of the president on it. the police had to get involved here. and ultimately, the guy went peacefully away. but they have been standing here. they have been shouting and so this is where we are, waiting to see what exactly is going to happen here. we expected one more thing, ari. a press conference a little after noon today from the secretary of state to give us a sense of when we think the results might come in. just last night she thought we'd have the vast majority of the votes counted by tonight but that has been postponed. i wouldn't expect to hear anything in any kind of definitive way until tomorrow, ari. >> really great context reporting from the ground. we'll be checking back with you, chris jansing. chris walking us through some of the legal issues. that brings us to our legal law expert, nate.

an nbc legal analyst. thanks for joining us. >> sure thing. as you know, healthy elections, the best kind. what we see in pennsylvania from what i can tell legally, currently looks like pretty small ball. you have litigation challenging the distance of observers during a year where everyone understands that the distance we keep with each other has actually changed apart from election observance because of health concerns around covid. it doesn't look to me like something that would change the outcome. your thoughts on the kind of suits we're seeing in p.a. and elsewhere and whether for nonlawyers we need to -- people need to care about them or not, if they'll not affect the results. >> well, i think we do need to care about them because they are setting the state for what might be later more legitimate lawsuits. right now, there's not a consistent legal theory that the trump campaign is pursuing around the country. they want the votes stopped in -- or the counting stopped. we need to make that

distinction. the counting stopped in places like pennsylvania. they want the counting to continue in places like nevada and arizona. and so with respect to these particular lawsuits in pennsylvania, there is the ballot observer lawsuit that you mentioned but also a set of other lawsuits going after the secretary of state, going after the canvassing boards and saying that one or another practice that they've adopted is against the state law. that -- they also have said or at least announced they are intervening in the long case that's been going on that went to the supreme court about even the extension of the deadline. there are many cases in pennsylvania, but right now, they don't seem to be affecting the outcome. it's not even clear how you might vindicate those claims because you'll not end up canceling the votes that were duly cast. >> to be clear for viewers. are there any suits in your view that would have a potential remedy of tossing votes that are on the books right now?

>> no. i think that the only case that has the possibility of being serious would be one that deals with the votes that were cast and received after election day. and what the state of pennsylvania did is they segregated those ballots. so if those are and received afn day. what pennsylvania did was segregate those ballots. if they don't affect the outcome that case can be going away. >> we're looking right now live at the county. but i want to talk about how

they could not choose, but the only way we're seeing something that they're not hospitable towards, if it is so tight that it might turn on bat lollots th were submitted on time but delivered on time, then they might have a play. >> you may may remember the cases, before justice barrett returns. so originally it allowed for that, and that would be a pretty dramatic move for even them to take, but it is still early. there is lots of stuff being thrown against the wall. we have not seen how they will

crystallize. >> i appreciate that point, but you said i was being too friendly. hopefully that will be a good thing, i'm joshing with you and nate. i think you help people understand that with no shade most of the suits that we're seeing are long term irrelevant but anything could still happy. i appreciate your context, sir. >> sure thing. >> we turn now to a update with both campaigns. carol lee with the trump campaign. ali vitali in delaware with the biden campaign. let's pick up on this report. some of it it was foreshadowed.

we continue to hear about going down fighting, going down hard, what are you seeing and hearing? >> what i'm hearing is that there is more of a recognition about the very narrow path that the president has. one of his add visors says he needs to get lucky everywhere. a legal strategy that is being turned down on multiple fronts, but they're trying to get a foothold in each of these states. and then at the same time message publicly that there is something nefarious going on. they are struggling a little bit to get the message that we heard from the campaign this morning saying that the president is alive and well, don't count him

out. anyone that count him out in the past has been wrong. >> you're our expert. i think the country is going out around the country right now. is that, at this point, in your reporting judgment an effort to still alter an outcome or is that a post potential loss strategy. do we have a view on that? >> it is a little bit of both. now it is continuing and you're seeing that they're trying to find traction somewhere legally. we heard a number of things. we have seen lawsuiting in different states that have been thrown out or dismissed. we heard threats of a national lawsuit. and we have seen them try to get on message with what they say now, that they don't want --

they only want "legal" ballots to be counted. it took time for them to even get there. it is undermined by the president himself. >> ali? >> i think for the biden campaign they're looking at all of these states and they keep saying things like victory is imminent. they know they have multiple paths here. that was true even before election day. they feel good in pennsylvania. they think in nevada and arizona they're also ultimately going to be the winner. i would say they're sign posting a little here for the states out west. what we heard on a campaign call earlier today is that she thinks as results come in there, and if you listen to the briefing out of nevada, it's clear that the counting will still take some time. so the time is very influx, but they predicted that we're going to see some volatility in the margins here. you could see trump ahead, biden

ahead, but ultimately they think that it will settle out that biden will win nevada. i also think that we knew this would take awhile. the difference of living in this raet can be frustrating for campaigns. waiting can be the hardest part. >> ali vitali, tom petty with wisdom for all of us, another way to put it is "started from the biden and we're here." >> you could put it that way. because of your mask i could not see if you enjoyed that drake reference or not. >> i certainly enjoyed it. a lot of these campaign staffers that i am talking to, what they would really enjoy, is hoping that the states can count count count. >> there it is, i won't make this moment last any longer, but

i appreciate you both for your reporting. we have more with katy tur after this quick break. h katy tur aftr this quick break to any size bu. no matter what it does, or how it changes. and we kept going. so you only pay for what you use. because at dell technologies, we stop...at nothing. ♪

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it is 11:00 a.m. out west and 2:00 p.m. in the east and we're watching nevada,