Gary O'Donoghue
Reporting from Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Donald Trump rallies are usually pretty slick affairs from the production standpoint.

And given Trump was in the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee 15 weeks ago accepting the Republican nomination, the last thing you'd expect is sound problems.

But 10 minutes in, the crowd are shouting "turn it up" because they couldn't hear him.

"It pisses me off," says Trump when people shout they still couldn't hear him.

"This mic stinks," he says and threatens to not pay the contractors.

If the former president had been here during the warm-up when they were blaring out the music, he would have been able to feel the beats thudding through his chest like the rest of us - your correspondent measured 107.4 decibels on a sound meter - pretty loud by any measure.

Image source, Getty Images

Not far from where Donald Trump is set to take the stage in Milwaukee is Kamala Harris's own duelling rally being held in the same Wisconsin city.

Ahead of the former president taking the stage, we heard from Scott Walker, former Republican governor of Wisconsin.

Meanwhile, Harris's rally has featured a star-studded line-up like Tennessee rapper GloRilla, rapper Flo Milli, and Keegan Michael Key - one half of the Key & Peele comedy duo.

Key tells the crowd that he's there for a reason that is "on the serious side".

He adds that in this election, the choice is clearer than "taking a barrel over Niagara Falls" to travel from Canada to the US, versus taking a conventional mode of transportation like a plane or a car.

"We need leaders who understand the value of things like clear air or clean drinking water," he says. "I wish that was a joke," he adds.

Later on, Harris is expected to appear, as will rapper Cardi B, in a final push to get the vote out in battleground Wisconsin.

Georgia's top election official told BBC Newsnight earlier that the state has been preparing for any potential turbulence during and after election day.

“We've done security roundtables in the last year, meeting with several counties at a time, with law enforcement, cyber security experts, and just done some role playing so people are prepared for anything," says Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican.

"Many of the counties have purchased lanyards that with a panic button that they can press."

The state has seen a record 3.7 million ballots cast during the early voting period.

Image source, Reuters

We've just seen a string of court rulings that will affect some voters in Pennsylvania.

One decision was issued by the US Supreme Court in Washington DC and a second by Pennsylvania's Supreme Court.

Here's what they say:

• Ruling one - Provisional votes cast by voters whose mail-in ballots were deemed defective due to error can be counted once polls close. Republicans had sought to block a state court ruling that found that provisional ballots should be counted when cast by voters whose postal ballots were ruled defective
• Ruling two - The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that ballots that are not dated by the voter will not be counted. A state court ruled last week that the dates were unnecessary, but the Supreme Court overturned that decision. The ruling was cheered by Republicans, who called the dating "an important ballot safeguard"

In Milwaukee, we're about to hear from Donald Trump and then Kamala Harris will start her own rally in the Wisconsin city not long after.

The state is one of seven swing states that will be crucial in determining the outcome of the presidential election.

With a population of 5.9 million, Wisconsin holds 10 of the 538 electoral college votes.

Wisconsin’s mix of cities, small towns and large rural areas has made it one of the most-contested states in 2024.

When Harris appears in the state she tends to accuse Trump of being a threat to democracy and focus on his false election claims. But at Trump rallies, immigration is the big issue and supporters talk about how their candidate - and by extension, his backers - have been treated unfairly.

• A quick guide to swing state Wisconsin

How will Trump make his pitch to voters in battleground Wisconsin?published at 01:02 Greenwich Mean Time 2 November

01:02 GMT 2 November

Gary O'Donoghue
Reporting from Milwaukee, Wisconsin

The yard signs and bumper stickers are all very much on message - piled up in the hallways as we waited a bit earlier today to enter the former president's final rally of the day here in Milwaukee.

The problem of course is that the candidate is struggling to stay on message - his latest outpouring involving the idea that fellow Republican, Liz Cheney - who is supporting Kamala Harris - would not be a "radical war hawk" if she was in a war herself and had guns "trained on her face".

That of course comes on top of his comments earlier in the week about "protecting women" - "whether they like it or not" and after the debacle surrounding a comedian and his "jokes" about Puerto Rico last Sunday.

It's far from clear whether there's any tactics, let alone strategy, behind Trump's interventions - some of which he publicly says his campaign would rather he avoid.

One thing is clear - he rarely tries to clean up any missteps after the fact - preferring in fact to double down. We are holding our breath for tonight's instalment.

Gary O'Donoghue
Reporting from Milwaukee, Wisconsin

The pre-program at tonight's Donald Trump rally in Milwaukee is a bit of a mystery tour since the campaign hasn't published a list of the warm-up speakers.

So imagine my surprise when Scott Walker walked on stage.

Who is he? I hear you ask.

Well, he is in fact a former Republican governor of Wisconsin, but perhaps more significantly, he was the man in 2015 who attracted all the smart money to be the next president of these United States.

The hype around him was huge. He had the backing of the powerful Koch brothers.

But just two months after he announced he was entering the race for the Republican nomination - he was gone - a footnote to presidential history.

Politics can be a brutal business.

Gary O'Donoghue
Reporting from Milwaukee, Wisconsin

You sometimes forget, being on the election beat and on the road the whole time, that not everyone is obsessed with politics and the outcome of this race.

When we arrived at our hotel in Milwaukee last night, we were greeted by dozens - no hundreds - of grown men and women dressed up in "My Little Pony" costumes - enjoying what turns out to be the tenth year of their convention, external.

You add to that the fact that they were also having a Halloween party, and it turned into a very confusing evening indeed.

Regularly, as we make our way to these various venues, people stop us and ask us what's happening, seemingly, some would say, gloriously oblivious of the fact that a former or prospective president is in their town, pitching for their votes.

All of which is a sobering reminder, that life goes on even in these frenetic and febrile times - politics really isn't everything.

We now have a decision in a case we wrote about earlier today.

Pennsylvania's Supreme Court has ruled that mail-in ballots that are not dated correctly should not be counted in the upcoming presidential election.

Republicans are hailing the ruling as a "big win for election integrity."

This ruling is separate from the US Supreme Court's decision on provisional ballots.

Pennsylvania law requires voters to handwrite the date on which they filled out their ballot, but a state appeals court on Wednesday decided that the mandate was unconstitutional in a case involving a few dozen ballots cast in a special election in September.

That ruling prompted both Republicans and Democrats to ask the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to clarify how the decision would impact ballot counting in the presidential election. Pennsylvania will begin tallying mail-in ballots after the polls close on Tuesday.

Republican National Convention Chairman Michael Whatley called the rule "an important ballot safeguard."

Democrats, meanwhile, have argued that the mandate "serves no purpose" because a ballot's timeliness is determined by when it is scanned by election officials, not when it is filled out.

Harris once again makes her pitch to young voters - some of whom will be casting a ballot for the first time on 5 November - saying "I love Gen Z, I really do".

She adds that young people are “rightly impatient for change” on gun violence and the climate crisis.

In closing, Harris asks her supporters to knock on doors, text their friends and tell their families to go out and vote.

"Your vote is your voice, and your voice is your power,” Harris says.

Harris’s remarks lasted nearly 30 minutes - much shorter than Trump’s earlier rally in Warren, Michigan.

She will appear on stage once again tonight in Milwaukee, where she is scheduled to speak alongside rapper Cardi B. Trump will also be holding his own rally in Milwaukee tonight.

Image source, Getty Images

At a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Kamala Harris is attempting to draw a contrast between herself and her opponent - Donald Trump - billing herself as part of “a generation of new leadership in America".

She leans on her experience as a prosecutor and former attorney general of California, as she has numerous times during the campaign, saying that she is someone who would fight predators, criminals and drug traffickers.

“If you give me the chance to fight on your behalf as president, there is nothing in the world that will stand in my way,” Harris says.

Trump, she says, is not someone who is “thinking about how to make your life better,” repeating her assertion that he is “unstable” and “obsessed with revenge”.

Harris then outlines some of her key priorities if she were elected president, including covering the cost of healthcare for seniors under Medicare, lowering the cost of childcare and cutting taxes for small businesses.

She goes on to say that Trump’s economic plan will cost the average American family thousands of additional dollars per year.

• For context: Harris has repeatedly said this and it's a reference to Trump’s plan to increase tariffs - or taxes - on foreign goods entering the US if he becomes president. Many economists believe tariffs increase prices for consumers, but it’s not guaranteed that the impact would be as big as Harris claims. BBC Verify looked into these claims.

The Supreme Court’s decision affects provisional votes in Pennsylvania, a key swing state worth a whopping 19 points in the crucial electoral college system that decides the next president.

In many parts of Pennsylvania, voters are notified if their mail-in votes are not counted due to being faulty. Such postal votes can be ruled defective if they are not signed or dated by the voter, or do not come enclosed in the provided secrecy envelope.

Voters who are informed that their mail-in ballots have an error are then able to request a new ballot or go to a polling station and vote in person.

These ballots are called "provisional", and they typically do not count until questions about a voter's eligibility are resolved.

According to the Associated Press, of the 1.6m mail-in votes already cast in Pennsylvania, 9,000 ballots have arrived without a signature, date or security envelope.

Republicans wanted to blocka 23 October ruling by Pennsylvania’s high court that allowed voters to submit in-person provisional ballots if their postal ballots had been ruled defective.

While the US Supreme Court on Friday rejected the Republicans' appeal, it may not be the end of the matter, which could ultimately return to the justices.

It is unclear how many provisional ballots will now be counted, after the Supreme Court's ruling.

The US Supreme Court has cleared the way for Pennsylvania to count thousands of ballots that Republicans had wanted to be set aside.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court had ruled that voters who returned postal ballots without the required secrecy envelope - which could invalidate their vote - could submit a provisional ballot instead on election day.

Republicans had asked the US Supreme Court to freeze that decision, arguing it went against the state's election code. Friday's dismissal of their emergency appeal is a legal blow in a potentially pivotal swing state.

As we've been reporting, Donald Trump is visiting Dearborn, Michigan - an Arab-American majority city in a swing state.

Voters in this state - and city - appear to be split, in large part due to anger at the Democrats' Middle East policy.

On the streets today, chants of "USA" and "Free Palestine" could be heard among the assembled crowd.

Democrats are asking the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to rule on whether mail-in ballots that are not dated correctly should be thrown out.

The state requires voters to handwrite the date on which they filled out their ballot.

But a Pennsylvania appeals court on Wednesday ruled that the mandate was unconstitutional in a case involving a few dozen ballots cast in a special state election in September.

It was unclear how the ruling would affect how mail-in ballots are counted for the presidential election and in a filing on Friday the Democratic National Committee and local Democrats asked the court to make a decision on whether the mandate applies before election day.

Democrats want the rule removed, arguing that the date on the ballot-return envelope “serves no purpose” because a ballot’s timeliness is determined by when it is scanned by election officials.

Republicans, on the other hand, have asked the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to enforce the mandate in time for election day.

In a court filing on Thursday, they argued that the appeals court ruling violates a previous decision that no “substantial alteration to existing laws and procedures” be made before the ongoing election.

They have asked for a stay on the lower court’s ruling while all appeals on the case are heard.

Brajesh Upadhyay
BBC News, Washington

Image source, Getty Images

Many believe Muslim votes could be the difference between the winner and loser in the battleground state of Michigan.

Kamala Harris has struggled to win the wholehearted support of these traditionally Democratic voters, who are angry with the Biden administration's position on the war in Gaza. Donald Trump has tried to win over these voters by making a trip to Dearborn, Michigan - a city with an Arab-American majority.

This may add to Harris’s challenge in a dead-heat race, but a few Muslim leaders working on the ground for Democrats in Michigan also warn that it would be a mistake to treat the entire community as a monolith.

Mohammad Hassan, an elected member of the fully Muslim city council in Hamtramck, estimates that 80% of the 25,000-strong Bangladeshi Muslim community is voting for Harris while the remaining 20% could go for Trump.

“But Yemeni Muslims in the same city may go 50-50 between Trump and Harris,” says Hassan, who has been active in door-knocking operations in the state for nearly two decades.

He says the anger within the Arab-Muslim community over the Gaza war is real but, unlike the Bangladeshi community, they do not turn up to vote in big numbers.

There are also some voters within the Arab community who regard Harris as the candidate with the “temperament to find a solution” in the conflict, according to another Muslim leader.

“They are not naïve people. They understand what’s at stake," says Anam Miah, a former council member.

Trump called people of Yemen origin people of “terrorist background” during a speech in Pennsylvania, he says.

"So when he tries to get their endorsement in Michigan, he is basically saying - I like you but your people are terrorists," says Miah.

A bit before Donald Trump took the stage in Warren, Michigan, he took to Truth Social to address recent criticism levelled against him about comments he made about Liz Cheney.

In those comments, made during a rally last night, the former president suggested one of his most vocal Republican critics would not be a "radical war hawk" if she was in a war herself and had guns "trained on her face".

On Truth Social, he seemed to double-down on those remarks, saying: "It's easy for her to talk, sitting far from where the death scenes take place, but put a gun in her hand, and let her go fight, and she'll say, 'No thanks!'".

Earlier today, Arizona's top prosecutor told local US news that she was investigating whether the Republican presidential nominee violated state law by making a "death threat" against Cheney during the Thursday night event in Glendale.

"I have already asked my criminal division chief to start looking at that statement, analysing it for whether it qualifies as a death threat under Arizona's laws," Attorney General Mayes, a first-term Democrat, told the US news outlet 12News.

Trump is now bringing up the latest US jobs report that was released today.

The figures - 12,000 new jobs for the month and an unemployment rate of 4.1% - showed that growth has slowed sharply in October, partly due to two back-to-back hurricanes and labour strikes.

He calls the report "bad news", blaming Kamala Harris and Joe Biden for driving the US economy "off of a cliff".

Trump tells his supporters that if Harris wins, the US may never recover.

"This is not good news for them," Trump notes, adding later that the Biden administration has "wiped out" thousands of manufacturing jobs under their tenure - a claim that has been disputed by experts, external.

He then takes aim at the "fake news people" for not reporting these figures.

Trump's messaging on this issue is particularly targeted to Michigan voters, who have expressed that the economy and jobs are top of mind as they head to the polls.

Image source, Reuters

Donald Trump is now speaking at a rally in Warren, Michigan.

"We're not going to have this too much longer, you know, we're winding down," he tells supporters as election day draws near. "Hopefully we'll be going to the next phase, which is to turn our country around."

Trump promises more rallies to his supporters if he is elected as president. "It's been the experience of a lifetime for a lot of us," Trump says.

He then asks a question he has posed several times in his recent rallies: "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?"

"I don't think so," Trump responds.

He adds that he is coming with "a message of hope for all Americans," reiterating his promises to "end inflation, stop the invasion of criminals pouring into our country, and I will bring back the American dream."

Trump emphasises his get-out-the-vote message, telling supporters not to believe the polls. "Nothing matters except what happens on Tuesday," he says.

Image source, Reuters

We are now just four days out from the 2024 US presidential election, and both candidates have been busy hitting the ground running in key battleground states to make their final arguments before voters head to the polls.

If you are just joining us, here's the latest so far:

• Donald Trump is under fire for comments he made on Thursday about former Republican House representative Liz Cheney, saying that she is "a radical war hawk" who would be opposed to war if she had guns "trained on her face"
• Cheney called Trump "petty, vindictive," and "cruel", while Kamala Harris said Trump's comments should be "disqualifying" him from running for office
• US jobs growth has slowed sharply in October, according to new numbers released today - these figures are closely watched ahead of an election, as they give an indication about the strength of the US economy
• Over 66 million Americans have cast an early ballot as of yesterday
• Rival running mates Tim Walz and JD Vance are holding duelling campaign events in the battleground state of Michigan. Walz addressed undecided voters in his speech, while Vance painted Democrats as "people who hate their fellow citizens"
• US intelligence has called out Russia for attempting to interfere with the upcoming election by spreading misinformation online, including a video of a Haitian man who falsely claims to have voted "multiple times" in Georgia

Up ahead, we still have:

• Harris in Wisconsin, a closely contested state, where she is making several stops before appearing alongside rapper Cardi B at a rally in Milwaukee at 22:00 EDT (03:00 GMT)
• Trump, meanwhile, is paying a visit to Dearborn, Michigan, a city with a large Arab-American population, before making his way to Wisconsin, where he will hold his own rally in Milwaukee at 20:00 EDT (01:00 GMT)