here is what we're watching over the next 60 minutes on this election day extended edition broadcast. a live look at volunteers processing the ballots in pennsylvania, a place the president won last time where we learned the last hour his lead is getting smaller as his past to 270 gets narrower. georgia an update from the secretary of state there, we'll bring that to you live and in arizona, it's joe biden whose lead seems to be getting chipped away a bit as more ballots get counted. the electoral vote count as we speak 253 for joe biden, 214 for president trump and the states in gray on the map making all the difference. pennsylvania, north carolina, georgia, nevada, arizona, check it out. all of them too close to call, the country on edge with protests erupting from coast to coast, and this morning, sources around the biden campaign sounding more and more confident about hitting that 270 threshold, while the trump campaign is on a battleground blitz of legal challenges including what we expect to be a new announcement on that later on this morning. i'm hallie jackson in washington. steve kornacki at the big board. blayne alexander in atlanta, jacob soboroff in atlanta and here is the road map from what we're watching for over the next hour and later here on msnbc. in a couple of minutes on this show we'll get an update on the vote count from georgia's secretary of state, then next hour we'll hear from the trump campaign in las vegas, that's what we expect is the announcement of another lawsuit they're filing acovereding to a source familiar with that. in two hours looking at maybe a new vote count in from nevada and then later on tonight, from arizona, also for your radar a top pennsylvania official says their final count could be in as early as today. steve kornacki, give us the state of play right now. what are you looking at? we're getting new numbers from p.a. and potentially georgia. >> you mentioned that update coming from georgia. i'll be interested to hear what they have to say because donald trump's lead statewide in georgia is under 20,000, sits at 18,500 votes. biden has been chipping away and chipping away at that. we think there are some, as i want to hear the update, there's somewhere on the order of 50,000 to 60,000 votes still left to be counted in georgia, and really a lot of them in fulton county, atlanta, chatham county where savannah is and others and metro atlanta counties where joe biden's done very well. democratic areas. so you've got an expectation here certainly that a lot, most all of what's to come in georgia is going to favor joe biden. the question is, if there's about 50,000 to 60,000 left and trying to eat away at a gap of 18,500, he probably needs to be winning biden about 2/3 of the votes that get tallied the rest of the way. again, in some of these places, that looks very doable for him, fulton county and chatham county. fasten your seat belts. does biden get back or fall just short in georgia? let's take a look here, too. you mentioned pennsylvania, where does the vote counting stand in pennsylvania right now? down to 135,000, come down to 30,000 in the course of this morning. big reason, we got an update from philadelphia, big democratic biggest city in the state, huge democratic area, look at how biden not only is biden winning overwhelmingly in philadelphia, you see he's getting 80% of the vote overall in philadelphia. remember what's being counted primarily here are the absentee ballots, the mail balance lots. in pennsylvania, they had to just sit on those ballots as they came to for weeks before the election and only deal with them starting on election day. they got a backlog. the mail ballots in philadelphia to biden at a 90% rate. the mail ballots counted in philadelphia are really bringing biden back into it. we think there's over 100,000 votes left in philadelphia, and there are other places on this map where there's some vote, it's a little unclear we have to say exactly how much though is left in philadelphia. it's the biggest variable. biden is going to win the bulk of what's left to come we think. he's going to significantly cut into that trump lead in pennsylvania. is he going to cut all the way into it and get over the top? again, that's the question there. and finally hallie, it's biden trying to play catch up late in pennsylvania and in georgia, we're also sitting and waiting on arizona and the roles are reversed in arizona. here it is biden sitting on a lead, down to 68,000. we had two batches from maricopa county, the big e in arizona. trump is winning those ballots being counted there and there are hundreds of thousands left. he's getting close to 60% of them. if he continues to do that with the remaining ballots in maricopa county and other ballots around the state, we have to see, but if he does, it is possible that donald trump could overtake joe biden and take arizona. so we've got a couple different possibilities in these states. trump has to sweep those states if he's going to win this. we'll see. >> interesting on arizona, too, steve, the trump campaign thinks you mentioned that 60% number, they think it's 58% they have to get depending on where the rest of the vote is, able to turn the state around. you mentioned pennsylvania. maura barrett is watching the vote count as we see the president's lead over joe biden dwindle a little bit. as we came on the air yesterday the president had an 11% lead over joe biden, as we come on the air this morning, that number is now under 3% maura, and there is indication perhaps we'll get that final vote count from p.a. maybe as early as today, tonight, right? >> reporter: that's a big maybe. the secretary of state said they've been moving along at a faster pace than anticipated and expects the majority of votes and mail-in ballots to be processed here in pennsylvania today. i'm in pittsburgh and allegheny county, overnight they finished up their mail-in ballot count, about 350,000 ballots total. they have about 35,000 ballots they're going to have to verify by hand tomorrow, but that's all that's left here in this democratic stronghold. on the other side of the state, philadelphia is really what we're watching. you heard from steve, we got about 20,000 new mail-in ballot results in from philadelphia. about 100,000 left but i want to explain the contrast. i was in allegheny county's warehouse yesterday as they were counting and announcing the reports of these ballots. they finished their last 20,000 ballots in about two and a half hours. our last update was yesterday at 4:00 p.m., that's about 16 hours to do the 20,000 ballots so we're a little interested in why there's a differentiation in these timings of reporting results. i just got off the phone before i came on with you with a city employee who said there's no cause for concern in how they're reporting their balance the los, pointing me towards the fact they're in philadelphia reconciling their poll books which means they're checking the ballots and to the ones that to make sure no one's voted twice. >> we're watching philadelphia and another state, nevada, jacob, potentially now we may be a couple hours, maybe two hours away from another tranche of vote count coming in from that state. >> reporter: not only that, hallie, but according to our colleagues, peter alexander and monica alba, we may get another lawsuit from the trump campaign. the margin is thin, 8,000 votes with tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands outstanding. what that update will tell us may very well move the needle on what that tiny margin is, doesn't tell us who is going to be the victor. ultimately, all of those votes need to be counted here. the certification isn't until the 16th of november, and if you move backwards from there, the 12th they can challenge signatures until, the 10th is the last day mail-in votes can be counted. the first time everyone in the state received a mail-in ballot, nevada, las vegas where the lion's share of those votes will come from, hallie. >> an update potentially, thanks, jacob, from neve pef. update from georgia this hour, about 20 minutes away from that. blayne alexander is following the count in that state. pla blaine, what are you expecting? >> reporter: you know what, we talk about how close this is and seems to be getting even closer as we get more batches of votes coming in. as of right now we are looking at a fewer than 0.4% differential between president trump and former vp joe biden. that's less than 20,000 votes. so what's remarkable about that, hallie, when you compare this to yesterday morning, about the same time, at that point there was about a 2.2% difference between the two candidates, now shrunk to 0.4% and a big part of that has to do with the places we're seeing the votes come in from. let me show you where we are right now. that state farm arena reporting from this location for the better part of the past 24 hours, that is where the ballots are counted for fulton county. it's metro atlanta and it tends to lean heavily democratic, so as we're seeing more and more of those votes come in, we're seeing that gap between the two candidates grow smaller and smaller, with joe biden gaining more of an advantage. let's talk about this is just one county but when you look at the rest of the state, we estimate between the secretary of state tells us about 50,000 to 60,000 balance lots that need to be counted. we're going to get an update not too long from now but fulton county have been working through the night, literally scanning nonstop, i talked with an official just now to get an update and they expect to finish their count within an hour but that's not the case everywhere. the secretary of state is optimistically predicting they could get results possibly by noon today, but hallie, that's the caveat this is very much a moving target. on election night, the secretary told me they hope to have results finalized by that night, so it's kind of been moving for about 12 hours every periodically or so as we find out just how well counties are doing, when it comes down to this counting. hallie? >> we'll check to see if the opt minimum holds. ali vital e, based on the report covering joe biden they feel more confident they could hit that 270 threshold. why? >> reporter: more and more confident they can hit the threshold. the question is timing. they're watching and waiting as the votes come in. they're qualify department but the reality is, they're at the mercy of all of the people counting the ballots, just like the rest of us are. so i was texting with a senior staffer this morning asking if today was the day that they thought they were going to find out who the next president-elect was and if they think it's them. that person acknowledged it's hard to tell the timing of all of this especially given the way that we continue to see ballots continuing to trickle in. now in conversations with our sources, they do see different paths to victory. it's always been true that the biden team has seen more ways to 270 than the trump campaign does but that doesn't mean they don't acknowledge that we're going to see tight races across these battleground states, whether it's pennsylvania, georgia, arizona, nevada, all of these states we're seeing the margin just continue to be so close. they're playing the waiting game on that front, but where they're not playing the waiting game is on two other fronts that prepare them for what could come next. a legal front we know the trump campaign is gearing up for different arguments in different states. the biden campaign is preparing for that, yes, by striking a confident tone saying they're ready with their own army of lawyers, but also by creating the biden fight fund, which is basically a fund that will protect them and help them as they fund all of these different legal battles across the states. it's not abnormal for campaigns to do that. you see it in a lot of different down ballot races, you hear words like recount. the trump campaign is doing the same thing here, so both are gearing up on the legal side but on the transition side, we know that's something that's been under way for months, not out of hubris but because it's legally mandated. there's a biden transition website that has gone live. a little bit of movement on that front. the waiting game is played here in wilmington, though we are told we should expect to hear from former vice president joe biden once again this afternoon. hallie? >> so we're going to hear from joe biden, hallie. carol, president trump has nothing on his public schedule for the second day in a row, no public appearances. he has been appearance plenty on twitter, including just this morning. you heard ali talking about the legal fights that the trump campaign is mounting and that campaign soliciting money for an election defense fund as they're calling it, some 12 times i think at least a dozen times in the last day or so. >> yes, hallie. what you're seeing from the trump campaign and the president is this public posture of confidence, that they're ready to fight, the path is narrow but they think they can make it. privately more anxiety, turning the. the's way for this to work out for him, or a number of things. the data is on their side. when you look at a state like arizona is that that's a state should not have been called for joe biden by some news organizations. it will be clear it's going to go for the president. this is their view. you look at pennsylvania and other states, north carolina and georgia, and they feel like they can pull something out. you see inconsistencies back in the way that they're talking about this. the president tweeted earlier, stop the count. so he wants the vote to count but stop counting but where, in pennsylvania? in afrz airizona? they want the vote to continue being counted. they're trying to find footing here and mounting a number of lawsuits on various fronts. we'll see this other one in nevada, and i expect that you'll start to see just, get a little bit more aggressive as they kind of work out their strategy here, so that's where they stand right now. >> so that's a look at the campaigns. i want to go, blayne, back to you to talk quickly about the senate race, there's two of them in georgia, one of them seems extremely close to runoff, senator perdue. talk to us about where things stand there. >> reporter: absolutely. one is very close to a runoff and the other is definitely in a runoff. so let's talk about that other one, the one that is going to a runoff january 5th, a jungle primary, so instead of two candidates, there were about 21 candidates on the ballot. going into that race it was almost a foregone conclusion nobody would get above 50% and that's exactly what happened. now that's on the one race. the other race when we talk about incumbent david purdue challenged by democrat john ossov, the democratic challenger in 2017 when democrats were trying to flip the sixth district in georgia for the house, one of the most expensive congressional races in history, he is now within striking distance of unseating the republican incumbent here in georgia, so we're in a very unusual position, hallie, where yes, it was strange enough there were not one but two senate races but now it's even stranger that both of them could be going to a runoff, so clearly watched not just by people in georgia but around the country, because it could have tremendous bearing on who controls the senate come next year. >> steve, i was looking at the numbers, if we still have you at the big board there where senator perdue is and john os ossoff is in georgia. we ticked down a tenth of a point slowly and right there at 50.0, right? >> here it is. exactly 50.0. no room for perdue to fall any further. we expect the presidential race to tighten further as the votes come in. looking at a list of the counties in georgia, the exact number of ballots to come, i'm just looking at it, atlanta metro area, savannah, disproportionately these votes will come from democratic areas, so is that going to -- it's a very open question to me, is biden going to be able to overtake trump? is perdue going to fall one tenth of one point? seems likely, doesn't it? >> i mean, based on where the numbers are coming -- >> what am i allowed to say looking at the numbers? >> no predictions of course but based on where the data is, that is something that we're going to be watching. steve, you talked about arizona, let me go to gadi schwartz in maricopa county. this is one we are watching closely here. steve and i were talking about the top of the show the trump campaign looking at the county closely. we have to wait a little bit longer until tonight until we get another batch of votes, am i correct in that? >> reporter: we're going to get another batch of votes tonight but it doesn't look like we're going to get the full picture for another day, possibly even more. we saw them release just over 100,000 votes yesterday, that's the clip that they're expecting to be releasing these votes, they're trying to take their time to make sure that everything is done right, everything is done methodically and i don't know if you saw, but they now have the added pressure of having crowds outside and these crowds are very angry. yesterday last night we were there, inside the election center, we could hear people chanting outside, we went outside and found a crowd people with long rifles, tactical rifles, they were chanting "we love trump" chanting "count those votes." they were insisting that the election was being stolen by biden. they were very angry about those early returns showing biden in the lead. right now that return and that lead that we were talking about is about 69,000 votes. every time maricopa county releases a batch, so far we've seen president trump closing that gap just a little bit. we know there are about 275,000 votes still outstanding here in maricopa county. the big question mark, however, is we don't know what part of maricopa county those votes are coming from. their mail-in dron-off ballots, people filled out their ballots at home and walked into the ballot location and dropped it off on the day of the election. it takes quite some time to verify those signatures. usually if it's coming from a specific place or a specific county or a specific neighborhood, you can glean a little bit of information but maricopa is massive. so what we've seen from the trump campaign is they think they're going to be 30,000 votes ahead because they trust that they can get six out of ten voters. those voters coming and dropping off those ballots, six out of ten of those votes will go to trump and if that does indeed happen, then trump may overtake biden, however the biden campaign says they are confident about their lead, 69,000 votes still ahead right now. they think they have already flipped arizona blue. hallie? >> gadi schwartz live in phoenix. our team of road warriors covering every angle along with steve at the big board. we'll keep everybody up and around over the next 60 minutes. we look ahead to the news conference from georgia's secretary of state, looking at the clock set to happen in ten minutes or so, we'll bring that to you live for an update on the status of votes being counted in his state, all of it happening against the backdrop of the u.s. hitting another all-time high for daily confirmed coronavirus cases. remember, the pandemic a huge reason why we're seeing so many mail-in ballots this election. we'll have the details. up next, pennsylvania, two states president trump, one of multiple states the president is filing losses to stop the vote count and take other measures. we'll talk to p.a.'s attorney general live. tired of overpaying for your prescriptions? try optum perks. it's a new way to save up to 80%. and everyone can do it. it's from optum, a health care company that's trusted by millions of people. you don't have to sign up for anything. just go to optumperks.com. and get a coupon to use at your pharmacy. that's it. i opted in. i opted in. you can, too. opt in and save big today. she always wanted her smile to shine. now, she uses a capful of therabreath healthy smile oral rinse to give her the healthy, sparkly smile she always wanted. (crowd cheering) therabreath, it's a better mouthwash. at walmart, target and other fine stores. frnext time try bounce wrinkleut ofguard dryer sheets.? therabreath, it's a better mouthwash. the world's first mega sheet with 3x more wrinkle relaxers. look at the difference of these two shirts... the wrinkle guard shirt has less wrinkles and static, and more softness and freshness. to tame wrinkles on the go use bounce 3in1 rapid touch up spray. bounce out wrinkles with bounce wrinkle guard dryer sheets and touch up spray! both, with a money back guarantee. so this is the scene, check it out coming out of philadelphia where the trump campaign announced they are about to hold another press conference i believe at that podium. one campaign adviser is teasing what they're calling a legal victory in philadelphia. we know the campaign filed suits in p.a., michigan to stop vote counting. it's part of a much bigger swing state legal blitz and challenging the handling of mail ballots in georgia, demanding a recount in wisconsin or at least threatening to file for a recoun recountx. add nevada to the list. the trump campaign expected to announce plans for an election related lawsuit in that state. let me bring in pennsylvania's attorney general, josh shapiro, who is with us from pennsylvania. attorney general shapiro, thanks for being with us this morning. >> good to be with you. >> i wonder if you have insight into the legal victory the trump campaign is talking about in philly. pam bondi was on another network talking about the potential for allowing some of their folks to be watching the votes being counted. can you tell us what you know and your reaction to it? >> well it's a little hard to f follow their legal strategy. they have the press conferences or whatever you want to call it, make a lot of noise and ultimately sometimes things are filed, sometimes they aren't. let me set the legal stage for you here, because i think they've purposely in my opinion misled the public in terms of what is really going on. first and foremost, what's happening here in pennsylvania is a count of all legal ballots. that's exactly what needs to happen. these are people that voted by mail, whether because of the coronavirus or whatever reason, over the course of the last several weeks. those ballots are going to be counted, period. they have on the legal front sought to intervene in a case in the u.s. supreme court where twice before scotus has refused to take it up. questioning whether or not ballots that are postmarked by election day and received up until friday, tomorrow at 5:00 p.m., can be counted. again, twice that went to scotus, twice they refused to weigh it on it. second a case where they lost at a lower court level in philadelphia, took it up to commonwealth court, like our appellate court to have people be able to watch the proceed eggs, may be what pam bondi is talking about and third they filed some other case kind of a technical case that really is a suit like many others have been dismissed and thrown out across the country, that's super narrow. i'm not sure it applies to anybody here in pennsylvania, but that's what this is all about. they're not going to stop the count. the count will go forward. all legal votes will be tallied, and we will respect the will of the people here in pennsylvania and certify a winner based on who the people of pennsylvania chose. >> that sounds frankly very definitive. it sounds like you are definitively saying these lawsuits are not going to pause, they're not going to stop pennsylvania's count from being finished which could be as early as today. that's a fair assessment of your remarks here? >> here's my assessment. they went to court multiple times in the run-up to the election to try and change the rules. every single time they went to court, we won, they lost, and we protected the rights of pennsylvanians to vote. if they want to try us again, we're prepared to meet them there and win again. this time to make sure that these votes are counted. i've said all along for months we're going to secure, protect and count every legal vote, and right now, we're in the phase of counting those, and these clerks and these communities from buck's county to erie county are doing an incredible job of making sure that all of these legal votes are tallied up. and i don't believe there will be any litigation that ensues that will stop that count. >> okay. would you argue with the framing i wonder, you mentioned the lawsuit related to the observation of the vote count, the one that appears the trump campaign is touting a major legal victory. would you dispute that characterization it is a major legal victory? >> look, i don't really want to get into a back-and-forth with the trump campaign over semantics. they seem to want to continue to run a rhetorical campaign and i would just say like the campaign is over, hallie. the votes were cast and now we have to count them, and respect the will ha will the will of the people. auto i'll not going to let anyone stop that process of counting. these are legal votes. they will be counted. there is transparency baked into the system, where candidates from all parties and all parties and what have you have the opportunity to observe. hallie, you and your viewers can observe by going online and watching a live stream of what goes on there. so we're going to continue this count. there will be transparency in the process and i would just say at this point, the rhetoric needs to go away. the campaign is over. we just need to focus on counting these ballots. >> pennsylvania attorney general josh shapiro, talking about counting the ballots process happening as we speak in pennsylvania, attorney general shapiro, thank you for being back on the show. we are waiting on an update from georgia, another very important state, still considered by nbc news too close to call. the update is coming probably in the next couple of minutes, what you're looking at on the left side of your screen. it is the tightest margin in the remaining states yet to be called by nbc news, just some 18,000 votes separating president trump and joe biden. we'll have that in a minute. also in the south, north carolina also too close to call. the margin there currently about 77,000 votes. sources inside the trump campaign are saying they feel qualify kent about keeping that lead as the absentee ballots continue to come in. i bring in morgan radford from charlotte. you got the presidential race there, the senate race is too close to call. when do we expect to hear more from north carolina? sounds like we may have to wait a little bit. >> reporter: the short answer is, we may have to wait until next thursday on november 12th, because here the state of play in north carolina right now, number one, you've got the president leading by about 76,000 votes here across the state but number two, this all comes down to those 116,000 mail-in ballots that the state said was requested but haven't yet been returned and that is what everyone here is waiting on. just this morning we spoke to political experts here on the ground and they had some interesting things to say. they said they actually do not think that 116,000 ballots will come back. they said they actually only expect to see about 30,000 ballots and most importantly, hallie, they don't think those ballots will make a difference in those big federal races, not for the presidential race and not for that crucial senate race that the democrats were hoping to flip the state and turn blue, a senate race that has become the most expensive in u.s. history. but they also said something else, hallie. they said the narrative going into the election, the narrative we saw even on election day was that this state was going to come down to those suburban voters, and the political experts said we didn't see quite the swing in those suburban voters, that they expected to see so when it came to federal races the suburban voters were voting the same but they saw this kind of swing voting behavior when it came to the federal races and the governor's races, and they saw that biden took a lead but not quite by the margins that they expected. so while we're waiting for those final ballots to come in, we may not know until thursday, november 12th, and that's the date that was set forth and upheld by the supreme court, that's the date that county boards of elections all across the state will have to count those mail-in ballots that were postmarked and then the state says once they count on thursday, we should have those updated totals. hallie? >> morgan radford live for us from north carolina with that update, thank you. we want to take you back to georgia and a live look at the state capital, where the secretary of state is getting ready to update rompers in a couple of minutes, any minute on the vote count there. you are watching our special post election day koecoverage h on msnbc. we'll be back with the live shot after the break. week on "the upper hands"... special guest flo challenges the hand models to show off the ease of comparing rates with progressive's home quote explorer. international hand model jon-jon gets personal. your wayward pinky is grotesque. then a high stakes patty-cake battle royale ends in triumph. you have the upper hands! it's a race to the lowest rate, and so much more. only on "the upper hands." it's a race to the lowest rate, and so much more. irresistibly smooth chocolate. ♪ to put the world on pause. lindor. made to melt you. by the lindt master chocolatier. ithe first full prescriptionis pstrength non-steroidal anti-inflammatory gel... available over the counter. voltaren is powerful arthritis pain relief in a gel. voltaren. the joy of movement. we are pack with more of our election day, election season week coverage on msnbc. steve kornacki back at the big board with a look at some of the states where the races are too close to call. as we speak, there is a call happening with reporters from top trump campaign officials and based on reporting from monica alba, sounds as though the trump campaign are saying they could win pennsylvania. they're looking at that margin that they have in that state. i know that there is optimism among democrats in that state as well. everybody can't be optimistic at the same time. i guess they can but the votes aren't going to get two winners come out of pennsylvania >> the question here is i think in part the outstanding vote, exactly how many ballots for instance how many ballots are left to come in philadelphia. i think we can put this up on the screen here. you can see right now biden's getting the overwhelming share here and then you take it a step further if you look at the absentee votes being counted in philadelphia, biden's winning by even a larger margin, we're trying to get an exact sense here of how many balance lots are to come in philadelphia, also potentially there's the question a relatively small amount but if this gets really close provisional ballots in philadelphia and elsewhere in the state. so biden is every time we update this, i was seeing if it will change. every time we update this, biden is eating into the trump lead statewide. i expect that to come down further. it depends on what is the total number of votes left out there. because biden is winning them, there needs to be enough of them left. that's what we're trying to get a sense of here in philadelphia and that is we don't have an exact number and that's the biggest suspense right now. >> yes. okay, so we're going to watch that and see how that goes. steve, i want to come back to you later in the show on georgia, once we hear from the secretary of state. the news conference has not started yet. when it does we'll bring it to you. there's a lot of states on edge this morning, there's concerns about protests, chaos growing as president trump puts in place these illegal battles over vote counts, reported results, sometime this morning according to nbc news reporting we are expecting word from the trump campaign on plans to file that election related lawsuit in nevada, in michigan. you have tensions coming to the foreat one vote counting center yesterday, protesters calling to stop the count, some police officers you can see here stepping in, as some of the protesters tried to force their way in to that location, where ballots are being counted. the trump campaign says it's suing over the vote count there. nbc news projecting joe biden the winner of michigan and the apparent winner of wisconsin. there the trump campaign says it's requesting a recount. why do we call it apparent winner? here is why. that's the language that we hear at nbc news use when the decision desk tallied enough votes to indicate the candidate won the race but the final results may depend on a recount or final tallies. that's why we say apparent winner and projected. apparent winner joe biden, wisconsin. garrett haake is in detroit, mi michigan, and gabe gutierrez in madison, wisconsin. what is the thinking people will hear of more potential protests? >> reporter: there's a small protest at the tcf center that started in the last 30 minutes organized by freedom works, the group, only about 20 people and not entirely clear what their message is. some of the stop the vote messaging we heard from the trump campaign, and stop the count. here in detroit the count is over. the tcf center, bustling center of protest activity yesterday, there's nothing left to protest here. we're just sort of waiting for the canvassing of the official results here. so some of this lingering protest here, but i think michigan might be kind of beyond the point where that projects anything, any pressure on anyone at this point. >> what about state officials in that trump campaign lawsuit that responds to that, garrett, what are you hearing? >> reporter: yes, this is kind of in the similar boat. the trump campaign got on board with this lawsuit about election observers essentially saying they wanted to stop the count so that poll challengers could be allowed. this is the lawsuit filed in a very small county in michigan, a county with only about 25,000 people, and that was to stop a vote count that has since completed, so the secretary of state here in michigan is a democratic official, has called this lawsuit frivolous, called it meritless, but the point of it may well be past action by the court given the count they were suing to be allowed to watch has concluded. >> gabe, let me go over to you, because we know that the threat it out from the trump campaign to request a recount in wisconsin. let's talk about the process and a quick reality check. the margin of wisconsin is the tens of thousands, not the hundreds. talk about the chances a recount will change the outcome there based on your reporting? >> reporter: hey there, hallie. yeah, the chances of it changing the outcome in wisconsin is unlikely. as you mentioned, the margin right now in wisconsin is about 20,000 votes to joe biden, and so the trump campaign is saying that because of what they see, calling voter irregularities, although there's no evidence of that just yet, they're saying they want to ask for this recount. here is what it would look like. in order to officially request it, they need to wait until the counties here in wisconsin certify the results that could take at least a week, then they have several business days before the count gets under way and election officials have up to 13 day is to conduct that recount. this could drag out until potentially later this month, late november, hallie. >> gabe, thank you for that. gabe gutierrez, garrett haake. over to georgia, the secretary of state is saying the expected count is, they expect to have the vote count totals in that state today. >> -- available and continue to grow and we see the number stops growing, 250,000 yesterday this time to 60,000 today. yes, ma'am? [ inaudible question ] >> well, the main thing, there's several things that work on this system. [ no audio ] -- any questions you can go back to do an audit and a recount, and many places, everything is open to the public. we have poll watchers in some of these places, fulton county, the state placed a monitor and we have had investigators for questions about how the ballots are handled and moving forward, it's frustrating. time when everybody else is done, here is the thing. florida has more to count than we do but the margin is wider so it doesn't matter as much. we have a much smaller margin and we're aware of that fact and the county elections officials feel that pressure. they understand. they are working hard, my hats are off to them having to go through this process and be under this level of scrutiny. they're all doing extremely well and these are 159 elections directors and employees, who are here, do the job at protecting democracy. when you go to talk to them, they think about that, they think about the votes of every person in this room and around the country. these are people who are not involved in voter fraud. these people are not involved in voter suppression. i'm telling you, they're doing their jobs every day, as hard and we are thankful for it and work with them to make sure every legal lawful ballot is counted. >> on this limiting, can you tell us the criteria for the decision made and [ inaudible ] >> the decision hasn't been made yet. the exact criteria as defined in the state election board rule, it will be decided probably after we get the county certification and not long before. the secretary solely makes that decision. i won't speak for him here. >> it will be a close race? >> sir, look at the s&p roles and it outlining the definition. yes, sir? >> [ inaudible question ] [ audio muted ] >> the lawsuit handled at the county level as i understand it, it may only affect 50 ballots but i'm sure their legal counsel will give them the advice to get to the process. mr. fowler, hold on a second, i can't hear with whatever they're doing up there. >> after the 60,000 [ inaudible ] -- >> we are working with the counties to try to get a full understanding of how many provisionals might be available. mr. fowler, who has done a good job of reporting on this election makes a very good point that the election is not over just in the absentee ballots. there are absentee ballots from overseas military voters if they're postmarked by tuesday have to be accepted by friday. they are provisional ballots that need to be verified by friday, and if you have an absentee ballot with an issue like missing a signature, you have until friday to cure those. yes, ma'am? >> would you anticipate this process will take -- [ no audio ] >> yes, sir? >> yes, so we have had some obviously technical issues here with the audio, a little bit of breakups. we'll pop out of theof this. we thought this was a news conference from the georgia secretary of state. that's gabe sterling the voting implementation manager for georgia talking about the vote count and the expectations and talking about frankly the pressure that some of these workers, some of the counties are under. they know the margins are so tight, so close in georgia that is one of the things that they know the eyes of the nation are on them for, the eyes of the country, all of us, and of both campaigns, frankly, both the biden and trump campaigns are looking to see what happens in the critical state of georgia. i want to bring in nbc's carol lee, who is over outside the white house for us and carol, we referenced this a couple of seconds ago with steve kornacki, the idea that the trump campaign is feeling confident in certain states based on a call that i think just wrapped one reporters. we heard from the campaign manager, a campaign senior adviser. what are they saying about georgia and what is their expectation for where things might go in the next day as frankly the president's path looks narrower than joe biden's at this point to 270? >> reporter: that's right, hallie. in terms of expectation setting, they are saying that the president is "alive and well" that's what senior adviser jason miller told reporters just a few moments ago. they're basically saying a few moments ago. they're saying president trump has been counted out before. don't count him out now. they say they can in deed turn out a victory in arizona and it's closer than you think. in pennsylvania they say they want transparency in the vote count. so that's why they're mounting lawsuits there, and they touted this new court order that, frankly, the first real victory they've seen in this effort that they've been mounting on the legal front where the pennsylvania court said that they could allow more closely for them to review the ballot counting process, obviously with social distancing parameters in place because of coronavirus. they're also saying that in terms of the president's tweet to stop the count, they want legal ballots to be counted. what does that mean? they're saying if it's postmarked -- that doesn't always need to be the case -- that they're not trying to stop all these ballots from being counted. as you know, they want some of them to be counted, particularly in a state like arizona which they're saying they can win where the president is down. their line is they want legal ballots to be counted. the headline is they're being -- they're defiant, saying the president is alive and well and that he's going to continue to fight on. he should expect more of this. >> i have to tell you, that word defiant. that's what keeps coming to mind as i'm having conversations with people in and around trump world. that's spot on. thank you for that update. we're talking about some of these states. i want to talk more about pennsylvania. that's the case where the vote counts are slowly trickling in. as steve kornacki has been talking about it, president trump's lead has narrowed, 135,000 votes as we speak right now. as the philadelphia vote counts get added to the total, joe biden is chipping away at the president's lead in that state. nbc's chris jansing is in harrisburg. chris, a question, right, how many votes are left to be counted and when this thing might wrap up. >> reporter: that's the $6 million question. the answer is we don't know. we heard from the lieutenant governor earlier today. he said still hundreds of thousands, enough to make a difference. we'll have a press conference right after noon with the governor and the secretary of state and hope to get better numbers from the secretary of state. to be fair, we don't know because votes can still come in until tomorrow at 5:00 p.m. no way to know how many there might be. just to give you a little perspective about the way things are moving, yesterday morning donald trump was leading many this state by about 600,000 votes. this morning, about 9:00, it was 142,000. now, as you saw from steve kornacki, it's about 135. those are the kind of numbers making the biden team feel good. they like what they're seeing out of philly. they say in some pockets it's 90/10. in allegheny county 80/20. i just got off of a call with some of the trump campaign folks, you heard carol saying they're expressing confidence. they say they believe they can hold on to the lead with some of the red counties that are yet to come in. they did not specify what exactly they were talking about. let me show you quickly a key red county, and that's lucerne. as you know, always mentioned as one of those to watch. it's a place where, as you can see, in 2012 obama won. trump lost numbers from where he was in 2016, hallie. biden says that looks good for them. we'll continue to look at what happens at the press conference with the secretary of state today. >> i know you will be there at your post, chris jansing, thank you for that. i want to bring in matthew sanderson, an attorney who worked as counsel for multiple republican campaigns, including john mccain in 2008. mr. sanderson, thank you for being with us this morning. >> good to be with you. >> so, listen. let's distill where we are this morning. the race is too close to call in some of these important states. the other is joe biden's path to 270 is less narrow than donald trump's, right? the third piece is, the trump campaign is pushing this legal blitz, basically, in some of these states to try to mount challenges to be able to put the president in a better position. all of that taken as a whole, i have this big picture question for you. if, in fact, joe biden holds on to the lead in some of the places where it seems like he might have it and he ends up hitting the 270 number at some point today, tomorrow, over the weekend, whenever, do you believe based on your many years, your extensive experience working with these campaign, working in election law, that the trump campaign right now legally has enough of a basis that they could actually undo some of that, undo the 270 number-plus, that joe biden could hit based on what they're doing in wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania, nevada and georgia? >> no. i don't expect that the result could be overturned as a legal matter. that doesn't mean there won't be legal activity in the interim, particularly in pennsylvania and nevada. i think it's worth -- in understanding the legal developments in recent days, it's worth comparing it to the republic legal strategy after the 2000 election in florida. regardless of whether you agree with the outcome there, was a highly orchestrated, disciplined, focused pr and legal strategy. we're seeing a much different approach 20 years later. what we've seen since election day with the trump campaign has instead been a scatter shot of lawsuits in georgia, michigan, nevada and pennsylvania that seem to be less about any underlying legal issue with the election, but more about creating a misimpression with the public that misconduct is rampant. >> matthew sanderson, i wish we had more time, sir. i'm fascinated by this conversation. we'll have you back. that does it for us on this special hour, extended election day edition of "msnbc live." i'm headed to the white house. i'll see you tonight on msnbc tonight, "nbc nightly news" and who knows after that. but craig melvin is up after the break. stop there. we made a cloud flexible enough to adapt to any size business. 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. ♪ stayed on my mind... was another around the corner? 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