Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar told reporters during a press conference Thursday evening that counties are working diligently to count votes in the crucial battleground state and expects the overwhelming majority to be processed by Friday. 

Boockvar called this the “home stretch” for the counting of ballots.  She emphasized that they’re encouraging all 67 counties to continue updating their results as frequently as possible. She noted, however, that it’s a close race — signaling we may not know the results tonight, which she suggested earlier. 

NBC News rates the race as too close to call, with Trump’s lead shrinking as counting continues. The president has 50 percent of the vote and Biden has 48.8, with 96 percent of the vote in and less than 80,000 votes separating the candidates.

Los Angeles County officials responded Thursday to a viral video, now viewed about 1.2 million times on Twitter, that fueled questions about ballot collection in the Reseda neighborhood.

The video, which surfaced online Wednesday and has been posted by multiple social media users, is one example of the varied examples of misinformation that have been debunked by government officials in recent days. 

“There were no missed ballots or missed Drop Boxes,” a spokesperson for the L.A. County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s office told NBC News in an email Thursday. “All Vote by Mail Drop Boxes were closed and locked at 8 PM on Election Day and then collected the following day – as was scheduled. The ballots are valid ballots and will be processed and counted in our Official Election Canvass."

The spokesperson also confirmed that the individuals shown in the video collecting ballots are members of their staff.

President Trump is expected to give remarks at 6:30 p.m. ET in the White House.

In September, U.S. intelligence officials warned that because of the pandemic, it might take a few days for the results of the presidential election to emerge — and that foreign adversaries might exploit the delay to spread false information intended to undermine confidence in the vote.

But instead of doing that, American officials and private experts say, the Russians and other foreign influencers have appeared content to report on the claims — made with no evidence — by President Trump and his allies that the election is being “stolen” from them.

“US President Donald Trump said that every vote that came in after Election Day will not be counted,” reported Sputnik, an English-language Russian government website, after Trump tweeted “Stop the count,” Thursday morning.

“Trump calls results ‘big WIN’ & accuses opponents of ‘trying to STEAL’ election, gets ‘misleading’ label from Twitter,” RT, another Russian media operation, said Wednesday.

“Nothing that Russia or Iran or China could say is anywhere near as wild as what the president is saying,” Clint Watts, a former FBI agent who tracks foreign disinformation, said. “We cannot say this time that Russia, Iran or China interfered in a significant way. They don’t need to write fake news this time — we’re making plenty of fake news of our own.”

Read the story.

Another wrinkle to the closely watched tabulation in Georgia: Before certifying results, Georgia election officials, under a new state law, will begin Friday what they’re calling a risk-limiting audit to ensure the votes were accurately counted.

Under a risk-limiting audit (RLA), a statistically meaningful sample of ballots are examined by hand to see whether the declared winner truly won. The audit is mathematically designed to catch anomalies that would arise from misconfigured machines, procedural errors or intentional attack.

But in a lawsuit filed by election technology activists, University of California, Berkeley, statistics professor Philip Stark, who helped pioneer the concept of RLAs, said in an affidavit the state’s procedures are more of a “pilot” than a true RLA. That’s because of lax chain of custody procedures, the use of “duplicated” rather than original ballots, and other issues, he told NBC News in an email.

In addition, Georgia is using new electronic ballot marking devices that print out paper records rather than the hand-marked paper ballots necessary for the high quality audit trail, he said.

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Wednesday the state’s review will produce “over 90 percent confidence level” in the results and certification will be reached by Nov. 13.

Chances are a recount won't make a difference in a statewide election.

In the past 50 years, few recounts have led to a change in the winner. And in the handful of still-uncalled 2020 battleground states, there has not been a flip following a recount in at least the last two decades.

The Trump campaign, which has initiated a legal blitz in swing states, already announced it will request a recount in Wisconsin, where President Donald Trump trails 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden by about 20,000 votes. Wisconsin law allows for candidates to request a recount if the margin in the race is within 1 percent.

If that recount is at all similar to past Wisconsin recounts, the current vote deficit would be a mountain to overcome.

Read more here.

The first House Democratic conference call since Tuesday's election turned contentious Thursday, with moderates expressing frustration and anger over the strategy amid the party's loss of several seats. 

Several members complained about the liberal push to defund the police — something Democratic leadership has not supported — and embrace of what critics of the party describe as socialist policy proposals, according to two people on the call. 

Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., was one of the members who raised such concerns. She barely won her race – by about 5,000 votes - in a conservative district. 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told the caucus that the election results ultimately were good for Democrats because although they did not win every race, they had held the House and appear likely to win the White House. 

But one lawmaker said of Pelosi’s take, “That’s B.S.”

Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., would not give details about the call, but he was clearly frustrated about the party's election performance.

“My dad used to tell me, ‘You gotta turn chicken s--- into chicken salad.’ And that’s exactly what I intend to work towards,” he said.

Joe Biden on Thursday again expressed confidence that he would win the 2020 race after all votes are counted.

“We continue to feel, the senator and I continue to feel very good where things stand,” Biden said Thursday about the 2020 race during brief remarks alongside his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, at the Queen Theatre in Wilmington, Delaware.

“We have no doubt that when the count is finished, Sen. Harris and I will be declared the winners,” Biden added. He delivered similar remarks Wednesday.

Nodding to the fact that votes were still being counted in several key battleground states nearly 48 hours after polls closed, Biden said “democracy is sometimes messy” and “sometimes requires a little patience.”

He reiterated his call that “each ballot must be counted,” urging supporters to “stay calm.”

“The process is working,” he said. 

Prior to speaking, Biden received briefings on the Covid-19 pandemic and the economy.

The Trump campaign is asking a federal judge to stop the vote count in Philadelphia.

In a lawsuit filed Thursday afternoon, the campaign says the Philadelphia County Board of Elections is not yet obeying a state appeals court order to let observers get closer to the counting tables.

“It has been studying the order for over an hour and a half, while counting continues with no Republicans present," the suit said.

The campaign said this violates their right to due process and seek an emergency injunction to stop the count until Republican observers are allowed better access.