Im sorry kelly welcome to the program votes are still being counted in several key swing states at this hour in the u. S. Election democratic challenger joe biden is leading the quest to secure 270 Electoral College votes that would take him to the white house the Associated Press agency says that biden has taken arizona and puts him at 264 votes although other News Agencies have yet to call it now as Donald Trumps potential path back to the white house narrows he is claiming fraud and has launched legal action in 3 states to have the vote count stopped. Racked. Up frustration spilling out onto the streets in new york and take trump. Pastors demanding every vote be counted. In other cities like here in seattle a similar story. In portland a sign that many here have had enough of us politics altogether. But in phoenix arizona pro Trump Supporters make their voices heard outside an election center. This is a country divided. I believe personally as a republican that trump won in a landslide but because of culbut and the ballots that 300000 ballots overnight were found in every city in the swing states were by then im just overwhelmed i am so stressed out yesterday with like you know in society but this morning i broke down and cried because of the possibility that trent might be in office again. Across several states votes are still being counted the majority of them have been sent in by post and in this election costing a vote by mail has been favored by Many Democrats every vote must be counted no is going to take our democracy away from us not now not ever. Records come too far and records far too many battles americans endure to march ever let that happen. But republicans 7 claim these parties to a votes amount to electoral fraud with donald trump accusing democrats of trying to steal the election. Trumps top lawyer is promising legal action with the push to get it the way of moving you know something the democrats do think is that they do think youre fools thats why you get called deplorable and chomps. So. Were going to stick with this were going to win this election with actually one just a matter of counting the votes where. It may come down to the courts to decide who wins this election the closest fought battle for the white house in 20 years. And lets get a live update from washington now didnt you correspondent karl a biker is standing by their car left where does the race stand right now it is so close. It is a very close counting has been going on through the nights and to the Early Morning hours here in the u. S. And once say that the focus is on this arizona which if fide and wins that would be a flipped. One in 2016 and they would now go to biden several news organizations have already called it but others have nots so it looks like its going to be a win for biden even though his. Margin of of his lead there is shrinking a little bit but many of the votes still being counted are in Maricopa County and that is leaning democratic so that is looking good for biden right now lets talk a little bit more about Maricopa County and the general atmosphere that were seeing in some of these you know sort of hot button areas within arizona itself weve seen protests there from those who are unhappy with how the counting is going how much has the democratic process been thrown into question in this election. Well it is very important to mention that trump has been talking about fraud and has been has been questioning this process since way before the election and of course even more so now since yesterday and that is spilling over onto his supporters who are now also saying as we heard earlier all you know maybe something fishy has been going on and something isnt quite right here but the fact is that there really is no evidence for voter fraud in this election whatsoever so yes votes are still being counted and this is taking a little bit longer but that has nothing to do with with anything stranger on toward its just that so many more people have been doing early voting and have been voting by mail and the fact that more and more votes coming in now are for biden is also not a sign of democrats manipulating this in any way its just that more democrats than republican are voting by mail so this is why we are seeing these vote increase and more biden now and settle for trying to talk with us about another key state another one is georgia that everyone is looking very very closely at still you know a slim possibility there that joe biden might be able to flip that state what can you tell us about how important this particular state is for both candidates. So georgia and he is also very close trump has a lead here but its not by a very wide margin and trump needs to win its he basically cannot win the election without georgia if we are assuming that biden is indeed going to win arizona as you know some news organizations have already said he did then trump needs every other state that is still open in order to reach 270 electoral votes so he needs these these these votes for georgia he cannot do without it biden on the other hand if he wins arizona and then the value when he is also currently in the lead then he could make it without charge but the president cannot indeed he just needs 6 more electoral votes to push him over to 70 carlow biker with a view from washington thank you so much were now into a 2nd day without a conclusive result in the u. S. Election states have until december 8th in order to deliver the certified results although they often come in far earlier that date that deadline it is supposed to help guarantee that all votes have indeed been counted it is called safe harbor day because any state results delivered after that can be challenged of a less time this all came into play was 20 years ago and the election that was ultimately decided by the Supreme Court. November 2000 republican president ial candidate george w. Bush seems to win florida but the results are so close that the rules demand a recount the whole election hangs in the balance democratic candidate al gore request a manual recount in certain counties. Recounting by hand took a long time a legal battle slowed vote counting down and the state overshot the safe harbor date december 8th this allowed the Bush Campaign to ask the Supreme Court to stop a new statewide recount which it did bush was declared the winner by a margin of just a few 100 votes. Fast forward to this november another election without an immediate result the established law in some states is that counting early and mail and ballots can only start on election day and this year the corona pandemic meant millions of people voted that way counting all these ballots takes guess what a long time. We dont know how long yet but that december 8th safe harbor deadline is starting to become visible on the horizon. President trump has already said he intends to use lawsuits to slow down or stop state counts which could push them past the safe harbor date and make them vulnerable to challenges his 1st comments after polls close pointed towards vegas he falsely said counting votes after election day was illegal. We were getting ready to win this election frankly we did win this election by us is a major fraud nation we want the lord to be used in a proper manner so well be going to the u. S. Supreme court his democratic opponent joe biden had been expecting this and tried to take. The wind out of trump sails. Because of the on pressure down early voting a mail in vote is going to take a while were going to have to be patient until the hard work of talent votes is finished if under Clinton States miss the safe harbor date while theres still no overall result the u. S. Congress and Supreme Court could get involved bringing back memories of the bitterly divided 2000 contest. And lets get more on that we are joined now by liz shelter in berlin she has worked for several democratic campaigns in the u. S. Shes a policy analyst welcome to the Program Thanks for joining us compare what we are seeing right now in 2020 to what happened back in 2000. I think the main difference here is the mail in Vote Buying Campaign had a very strategic push leading up to the election states say mailing your vote so this is less about a razor thin margin and more its just taking time this is no longer an election day this is an election week and as these votes get counted the margin grows so i just dont see that same 500 votes actually coming into play i see the margins in pennsylvania tipping to where its by growing in arizona and growing in nevada to such an extent that you just cant have an argument with this group or i mean that assumes though that the votes continue to be counted the campaign we know taking action against counting ballots in several states what is the legal basis for that is there any legal basis for that. Theres not a great legal basis for that just some of the lawyers that have been really instrumental in for example leading up to the election getting votes counted in Harris County in texas theyve been tweeting that these these lawsuits just dont have a legal leg to stand on this is about counting votes that were already delivered or postmarked by the election day depending on the states rules and thats democratic and these are finding votes that are based on it these arent fraud this is just about counting every single vote and i dont think that there is any legal basis really for what hes trying to do to stop that count list take it to the big picture for us because biden we know right now has the most popular votes of any u. S. President in history a record here but the u. S. Calculates based of course on the Electoral College still how high are the calls for reform of that system could we see it if biden potentially wins this presidency. Were already seeing it i think after 2016 there were rumblings because at that point we had 2000 we had 2016 and now im seeing it really high level figures talking about reforming this system i believe colorado signed onto as a state that would vote for getting rid of the Electoral College they need just like the election 270 electoral to perform this and that puts them somewhere in the 1970 range i think and so as state legislators themselves are starting to say this is disenfranchising millions of americans and its putting us into this chaos where instead of looking at a popular vote that would decide the election on election eve were talking about these this this tension is just rising in just very few very specific states so i think this is gaining real traction and becoming a real possibility talk with us a little bit about the demographics the these trends that were seeing emerging you know as as the votes are tallied because trump appears to have lost some ground with white men who have until now been his principle base but there were more minorities voting for him and than many expected were you surprised by that why is that. I dont tax it and so a little bit surprised but why actually no Minority Group is monolithic and most especially not the latino and hispanic vote they come from around the world and so were seeing that reflected in cubans and venezuelans in florida voting for trump and mexicans in colorado overwhelmingly voted for by so were going to see that grow as spanning population gains a stronger and stronger voice in the american elections as far as white men i remember hearing in our interview with folks from restaurant states West Virginia texas michigan not texas pencil. They were saying we going for change we voted for our jobs and they didnt see that and so i think were seeing that reflected in folks that gave trump his chance and 4 years later their lives arent any better lish elka thank you so much policy analyst has also worked for several democratic campaigns we appreciate your view. Thank you. While many tweets put out by President Trump since election day have been flagged by twitter for containing disputed or misleading content we want to take a look now at his latest post it contains a headline from far right media outlet breitbart alleging vote counting chaos in detroit which is the closely contested state of michigan of course detroit one city there now the bright part article that the Term Campaign has not been given proper access to says it has not been given proper access to the counting process lets bring in fact checker. Who has been looking into the story he joins us now so what did you find out. Our team debunked this story and the bright part reported on poll workers in detroit covering windows as onlookers outside try to watch as ballots were being counted and obviously trying also to get into the polling station the police however did push back crowds who had begun pounding on the doors and windows and yelling stop the count which might have been influenced by President Trump who earlier said that all voting should be stopped however the breitbart article didnt mention was the fact that the election official said the people could not enter the room due to capacity concerns the allowed number of people in the room was exceeded and there were democratic and republican poll watchers beside me as media and lawyers in that room already according to present lawyers the tensions in that room began when republican poll watchers had gone to the poll workers by top talking and taking of them us getting too close to the workers or being even vocally aggressive they tried to tell the workers to stop counting so this was a serious problem for the workers the claims of being excluded by republicans were without reason and other members of the trumpet campaign are casting doubt on the election result itself and here is what toms lawyer with giuliani had to say in this in the commonwealth of pennsylvania not a single republican has been able to look at any one of these mail ballots they could be from mars as far as were concerned or they could be from the Democratic National committee joe biden could have voted 50 times as far as we know are 5000 times the ballots could be from camden philadelphia unfortunately and say this about my own city has a reputation for voter fraud yeah so what are the facts say. A former mayor of new york and associate attorney general should know better maybe voters can vote cannot vote 50 or 5000 times like claimed not joe biden nor anybody else to vote by mail you have to be a rigorous 3rd board to voter and you have one vote according to several studies fraud is a rare in u. S. Elections a Data Collection by the Loyola Law School only listed 45. 00 incidents of voter fraud in the last 20 years and that in relation to more than 1000000000 ballots cast the head of the study confirmed to d. W. Fact checkers by Rudy Giuliani insisted that mail in ballots in pennsylvania could be from everywhere from mars from the democrats or even from data people voting he doesnt deliver any evidence for this and independent election observers didnt find cases like this so far so giuliani colds a local judge a political hack because of his party wasnt able to get closer than 20 feet to the ballots he claims and it wasnt possible for his party to observe the election we couldnt verify that but we have no reports of a big fraud in philadelphia like giuliani says and he is the one who has been sent by donald trump to challenge the Election Results in pennsylvania so if you ask me this statement has to be seen in the context as trump side prepares a legal fight in several battleground states now lets move over to democratic candidate joe biden he gave a speech in wilmington delaware his home state he mentioned that he was optimistic about becoming the next president of the us only 3 president ial campaigns in the past have defeated an incumbent president when its finished god willing will be the 4th setter. No sir its not in the history of United States 10 incumbent president s have been defeated at the polls when seeking a 2nd term of the presidency term president s last in president elections and 2 more in National Conventions of their parties the 1st world war john adams who was defeated by Thomas Jefferson already back in 1900 and the last was george bush sr who lost against the sorts in bill clinton in 1902 so if biden wins he will be at number 11 not 4 of this ranking have ever of keeping the facts straight for us thank you so much lets look now at some other stories making news around the world the United Nations has expressed alarm over reports of armed clashes in ethiopia on wednesday ethiopias Prime Minister ordered the army to confront the Regional Government of gray province which has its own militia both sides are well armed and observers are warning of a possible civil war in the horn of africa. Hurricane at a its losing some steam across Central America people in low lying areas of 1. 00 us are being evacuated as the storm brings heavy rains at a devastated parts of nicaraguas coast on tuesday now residents of cuba and the u. S. State of florida are on high alert as the storm heads north toward the weekend. There. Well the u. S. Has registered almost 100000 cases in a 24 hour period of corona virus a new record in the pandemic there infections have been surging across the country but as a percentage of the population the midwest is currently hardest hit and in addition to rising cases hospitalizations are also story north dakota says that it only has 6 free intensive care beds in the entire state more than 230000 people have now died in the u. S. After catching the virus. Earlier we spoke to professor chin hong a professor of medicine at the university of california San Francisco and and Infectious Disease expert he told us that the election and in particular nonsoci