states today. live coverage coming up next around 11:30 eastern for delaware and their 3 electoral votes. at noon, harrisburg in the count of 20 votes. 2:00 p.m. eastern, michigan, 16 votes in lansing. the electors in texas meeting at 3:00 eastern where 30 electors will vote. tonight, president-elect biden is expected to give a primetime address. following, the author of "after the people vote, a guide to the electoral college" will join us to talk about today's electoral college vote in the process. that is coming up tonight beginning at 8:00 eastern on c-span. you can also see our coverage online at c-span.org or listen on the free c-span radio app. >> you are watching c-span, your unfiltered view of government. created by america's cable television company as a public

service and brought to you today by your television provider. jeffrey: there are two certificates. certification of assignment and certification of who actually won the votes. there are six copies of each and they are transmitted to the president of the senate, who is the vice president as well as the secretary of state, chief

judge of the federal district court, and those certificates are then counted on january 6 when congress meets to actually elect the president and recognize his victory. a complicated system. why do we have a? guest: we have it because the framers put it in the constitution and it was further refined by federal law. i'm so honored to be here to discuss this with you and the viewers. to place i like to begin anchor our discussion is the national constitution center's -- click onconstant the electoral college provision. assembledind we have the top liberal and conservative scholar on electoral college nominated by the conservative federalist society and constitution society to nominate at least 1000 words on what they

agreed the electoral college was meant to do and what it means and several statements about what they disagree about. scholars andive , let'ssive scholars begin by talking about the basic history. our scholars begin by acknowledging the electoral and criticsporters would agree it departs from democratic norms. the way it works today, as you today, 48discussing, states appoint all of their electors on a winner take all basis. the really interesting history. historically, there has been more dizzying variety. in the first presidential election, five state legislatures in connecticut, delaware and new jersey and south carolina simply designated

presidential electors without having any popular vote at all. in virginia, 10 congressional districts, the general assembly conducted a popular election. there up in statewide elections. a single from district, multimember districts and so forth. even from the very beginning of the founding, there was a wide variety in the way electors were chosen and our current system of single-member districts in every state except for two, was not present at the founding. host: is the term electoral college in the constitution? guest: each estate shall appoint in such manner as the to which thethere state may be entitled in a congress.

no senator or representative or person holding an office of trust or profit under the united states shall be appointed and elector. it goes on to say the electors shall meet in their respective states. vote by ballot for two persons, of whom, one -- and it is in bold because that was amended by the 12th amendment, which was ofsed after the election 1800 when thomas jefferson and his running mate got identical vote and both claim to the office. that is an amazing story. hamilton and up supporting thomas jefferson at the last moment. the whole thing was such a mess that soon after, the 12 amendment made it impossible for a president and vice president both to tie. that is a long way of saying i

needed to read the whole text in order to answer your question. no, the words electoral college do not appear in the constitution. host: jeffrey rosen with us until 8:45 eastern. if you ever had a question about the constitution, specifically the electoral college, now would be a good time to call. republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. we are talking about the electoral college on the day when electors are meeting around the country. a reminder, you can watch many of the electors meet in state capitals right here on c-span. our coverage begins at 10:00 a.m. eastern prayed we go to indiana first. theirto delaware to see electors, pennsylvania at noon. michigan at 2:00 p.m. eastern. texas at 3:00 p.m. eastern. all here on c-span. you can watch on c-span.org. you can listen to it on the free c-span radio app.

jeffrey rosen, has there ever been a day where the formality of the electoral college meeting has gotten as much attention as this one has in the wake of president trump continuing to dispute the election results? guest: that is a great question. i would think not. because the main dramas in the past have come from which certificate to count. the most contested election perhaps in history was 1876. there, the state of florida sent two slates to congress. one certified by the state legislature and the other, certified by the governor. and it was such a mess that electoralassed an count act, which certificate to count in a dispute.

we have not had tv and this much transparency before. even previous contested elections, 2016 was not as contested and bush v gore, it was not the meeting of the electoral college that was sick -- significant, but the supreme court's decision to stop the vote counts. i would say that this may be one of the most closely watched meetings of the electoral college in american history. host: this headline, "georgia governor brian kemp warning they cannoters choose faithless electors." remind us what a faithless elector is. it means and elector cannot vote for a candidate other than who he or she is pledged to vote for. there have been a couple of times where electors have done this. there have been 157 faithless electors.

71 of those votes were challenged because the original canada died before the electoral college casted votes. three votes were not casted because they chose to obtain. 82 were on the personal initiative of the electors. the most famous example was from 1796 where samuel miles was the first faithless elector. he pledged to vote for john 's, but instead, voted for thomas jefferson. his vote did not affect the outcome. jefferson still lost. published ans letter from an angry voter in the gazette of the united states, this wonderful line, do i choose -- did i choose is signal miles to decide for me? no, i choose him to act, not to think. the phrase i choose him to act, not to think embraces the

understanding of electors early on. that they are supposed to be ministerial agents. they are not supposed to decide who the rest candidate is, which -- best candidate is, which some of the framers hoped. but instead, agents of the political parties will. there was a really important supreme court case from last june. please check it out because justice elena kagan wrote it for a unanimous court. it is so readable. she is kind of writing to you. it is kind of funny. she has some great lines in there about peculiarities of the electoral college. in that opinion, the u.s. supreme court unanimously said that states may punish faithless electors. they can fine them. in the case, i think it was a $1000 fine. because whatever the framers originally thought about the electoral college being a dependent, after the 12th amendment, it was essentially a

means for carrying out the parties well. it was appropriate to force electors to do that and to find those who did not. host: jeffrey rosen joining us via zoom. the background he has is the national constitution center in philadelphia. a beautiful building inside and out. plenty of callers want to chat with you. i will let you get to it. this is derek in lakeland, minnesota. independent, good morning. caller: good morning, c-span. good morning, america. jeffrey, thank you for being on today. i appreciate the work that you do. as an independent, someone who does not believe in the legitimacy or the honesty of the parties running our country, the only reason we have faith in our country is we abide by the law and we have a constitution. and you cannot just pass laws that are unconstitutional as a dutch in the country. let's go to the state in which you are at.

whether you're there right now or not. the state constitution of pennsylvania is one of the oldest constitutions as far as states in our country. from what my understanding is, the supreme court of the state of pennsylvania as well as the legislature has violated the state supreme court in regards to voting and how the voting took place this year in the smokescreen of the global pandemic. what is your opinion about what happened in pennsylvania and how when a supreme court of a state does not abide by its own constitution? can you explain that? get into that a little bit. thank you. guest: absolutely. thanks for your devotion to the rule of law. you are absolutely right that the rule of law and the constitution are the one shining ordeal holding this country

together during this polarized time and it is so important we adhere to it. my job is just to give you the arguments on all sides just so you can make up your own mind to educate yourself as you are obviously doing because you are very well-informed. as you suggest, you believe the supreme court of pennsylvania, in particular, in extending the deadlines by which absentee ballots could be counted, might have violated state law. basically, the court wrongly decided that in balancing equities, people needed more time to read absentee ballots. that part of the case was litigated and went up to the u.s. supreme court. and at least some justices, including justice samuel alito, said he thought the supreme court also violated the law. that the law did not give the court the discretion to change

the deadline. he reluctantly concluded and said it was basically too late to grant relief. he ordered that the ballots that were late received and late counted be segregated, not counted with the other ballots. that is exactly what state officials did. we can all be confident that whatever you think about the merits of this legal question, those late received ballots had no impact on the result. they were not counted in the final totals. other justices disagreed. they said the state court should have complete discretion to construe their own state constitutions. and the state constitution empowered the court. it is a thing the courts do all the time in deciding the interest of the voters against these distinct deadlines. therefore, the court was right. the really significant question is federalism. this is what divided the u.s. supreme court. a group of justices, including

chief justice john roberts and the other conservative justices thought that when federal courts change deadlines that are imposed by state legislatures, the u.s. supreme court should intervene because the legislatures under article two of the constitution have authority to appoint the electors. chief justice roberts joined the liberals in that pennsylvania case in saying that when state courts construe their own state constitution, it is not the business of federal judges to second-guess a state court in interpreting its own state constitution. that is why chief justice roberts sided with the liberals on that case. in bush v gore in 2000, there was an example of the u.s. supreme court at the head of the federal judiciary committee second-guessing florida's construction in its own state constitution. the dissenting justices this , shows an incredible lack of respect for state courts and will only increase distrust of the legitimacy of state courts

throughout the country. justice ruth bader ginsburg agreed. all of this is to say there is a vigorous dispute on the u.s. supreme court about whether or not federal courts should defer to state courts when safeguards are construing their own state constitution in counting electoral votes. that is the core of the debate about what is going on in pennsylvania. host: a good time to direct viewers to constitutioncenter.org. plenty of writing and scholarship about it on the website there. jim is next out of belton, missouri. democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you? host: doing well. caller: so, just a couple of things. i fall into a group of people that would argue the framers did not get everything right.

i believe that we see that more every day. the second thing i would say is we have become, here in america, overly litigious, as it were. and so we lay ourselves open to this business. and then a third thing i would like to bring up is that the majority of people in the country, the majority of people who might be asked the question is america a country of majority rule, and sadly, we are finding out that that is not a hard and fast rule. thanks for taking my call. you guys take it easy. you have a good program. host: mr. rosen? guest: very important points. the framers did not get everything right. we have become too wet to just. all of them deserve a serious -- too litigious country.

all of them deserve a serious response. the framers did not get everything right for they would not have said they got everything right. that is why they designed the amendment process. although they disagreed about how often constitutional conventions should be resorted to. the constitution center just did a fascinating thing called the constitution drafting project. we asked three teams of conservative, liberal and libertarian scholars to draft a constitution from scratch for 2020. we basically said, imagine you are starting from the beginning. give us your best constitution. you know what is so fascinating? all three teams chose to keep the constitution and perform it rather than completely abolish it. this is what most surprised us. reinforcing your point, two of the three teams, the conservative and progressive team agreed we should abolish the electoral college if we were starting from scratch. they would have both elected the president with a national popular vote, using ranked, choice voting. even the libertarian team did

not reject the possibility of a national popular vote. the team leader endorsed it in a new book. they just decided not to include what they called good government reforms. that was -- that is a pretty powerful reinforcement of your point. these are extremely distinguished teams of scholars. they disagreed about a lot. they all agree with you that when it came to the electoral college, the framers did not get that right. and the conservative and progressive team would have replaced it with a national popular vote. later on in the show, i can give you the argument on both sides about whether or not to keep the electoral college, which you can find. i will end by reinforcing your important point in that way for you can check that out at the constitution drafting project on the constitution center website. host: on whether america should abolish the electoral, gallup with a poll finding 61% of americans prefer amending the constitution to use the popular vote instead. the preference for electing the

president based on who receives the most votes nationwide, 89% of democrats, 60% of independents and 23% of republicans shared that view. this is david out of texas, a republican. you are on with jeffrey rosen. caller: i want to refer back to what the guy was saying about the parties. i sort of felt that way myself until reading about madison and monroe. especially monroe. which started with the era of good feelings. by the federalists had basically faded away from the national scene andy republicans or democratic republicans had all of the federal offices. political parties on a national basis did not play a part in the

presidential elections until after jackson. you did not have things being decided by political parties. states were putting up candidates and nominating them and so on. this era of good feelings which sounded like a great idea was working out quite well until madison announced, like other presidents before him in their second term, that he would not be running for reelection. he announced it after two years in his second term, creating a free-for-all among his cabinet and his administration where people were jockeying for position to be nominated. it was a disaster. those will ultimately lead us back to the party system. it, it started with martin van buren, he had a lot to do with it. the reason i'm calling was not that. people forget, this thing of majority rules, look at how many founders talked about what they were doing in the constitution and how they were putting the

government together to avoid the tyranny of the majority. there would not be a united states, there would not have been a constitutional ratification without the connecticut compromise. madison's first proposal was for representative numbers in both the house and the senate. virginia was the biggest state at the time. both in population, white voters, and also a wealth standpoint. that was not replaced by new york until somewhere in the 1820's. the small states rejected the idea of just a majority vote along the lines. this compromise they came up with giving each state to senators and then merging the count of the senators to the representatives to create this number of electors, the house

was thought of as being the most representatives of people voting one on one, based on their population. the senate was still being voted on, being elected by the people. those people voted indirectly. that compromise was part of giving something back to the states. the constitution, which was kind of a surprise on the states, but constitutional convention was not what they were expecting to have happened. probably why we have never had one since. host: let me let jeffrey rosen jump in. also have a lot of colors waiting. i want to give them a chance as well. go ahead. guest: i love your passion for history. it is great you are reading about the history of the parties. you are right about how influx things around the madison and monroe administration. if i can recommend a great book i have been reading because it is so much fun. it is the biography of john quincy adams. it is called "public life, a

private life." it goes through his diaries to show his inner thoughts. atoms is really relevant. wednesday atoms. he is the son of john adams, the adams.cy he is the son of john adams, the -- james madison appoints him secretary of state. james monroe -- madison sends him to russia. james monroe appoints him secretary of state. he goes on to win the presidency. and then there is the incredibly contested election of 1824, where john quincy adams loses both the popular vote and the electoral college vote. but because there is no majority in the electoral college, it is decided by the house of representatives, which votes for adams rather than andrew jackson. i was struck in the biography this weekend that jackson graciously accept his defeat to

adams and even greets him at adams' reception, noting his victory but then goes on to call it a corrupt bargain and defeats adams water years later. -- four years later. and adams does not attend jackson's inauguration. he is one of two presidents not to attend his successors inauguration. the other is his father, john adams. important really point about how it is not designed to be majoritarian. most notably, the house rather than the senate. all we can say, and i am being descriptive. there are arguments on both sides. the electoral college, after the 12th amendment, was not primarily designed to be a counter majoritarian body. the framers abandoned the idea of electors exercising independent judgment. it was supposed to be an agency of the party will. you might question whether the modern electoral college is a good system because it does not allow either for independent

judgment and for in some cases, it allows for thwarting of a national majority. host: fort wayne, indiana. this is wes, independent. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you? host: doing well, sir. go ahead. you are on with jeffrey rosen. caller: i think you are great. i like you the best. i think it should be abolished because it is too confusing. most people do not understand the electoral college at all. i feel like it is just too confusing. the popular vote should win, period. just like when hillary won the popular vote, donald trump the electoral vote, but donald trump said, there had been tampering in the system. i said wait a minute, you won. he was right and who knows what about that. i feel like it is not necessary anymore. host: that is wes in indiana. is it too confusing? guest: i think that is the best argument. it is just too confusing.

that is a very great argument against the electoral college. like me a law professor to understand and i barely understand it either. i have to research all of this crop before these c-span appearances so i know what's going on. what kind of way is that to run a system? maybe this is a good time to just rehearse the arguments on both sides for the electoral college because everyone is really interested in this. and i will just go straight from the interactive constitution because those are our two scholars giving us the best arguments. first, when they describe together what the argument for against it, they say supporters credit it with supporting state based federalism in our presidential elections. and argues it works to guarantee our presidents will have national support. let's make sure we understand this. the two arguments are that it preserves federalism, it preserves the state's ability to express themselves as independent absentees and it

guarantees the president will have nationwide support. in other words, they won't just be elected from a couple of big states, but will have to get support from states across the country. critics argue that under current circumstances car -- circumstances, it consigns most states in the union as spectators and drags down voter turnout in the states. reduces the real field of play to fewer than a dozen swing states and dramatically polarizes the nations politics while reducing voter turnout. the big objection there is a it is not actually nationwide support. it is just five states. the one we have spent the past couple of months talking about, michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania. now it is georgia and arizona. the swing states get the attention and the rest of the states, none. this was written in 2015. it talks about the electoral college reducing voter turnout. obviously, that was not the case this year where turnout was higher than ever. we might went to dig in further

to the arguments for and against by going into the separate statements. i'm going to stop there and if anyone else wants to hear more about the arguments for and against, just ask. host: for those folks who want to change the system, obviously, very hard to pass a constitutional amendment, but one of our viewers brought up the national popular vote contacts. can you explain what that would do and whether that would be legal or possible? guest: i can, and once again, you see how i am just sticking to my constitution. progressive scholar writing about the interactive constitution talks about and endorses this national popular vote initiative. i am reading from his separate statement for the campaign for a national popular vote. he says the members of this compact coalition and he names them. they start with maryland, have all agreed to cast their states electoral vote for the winner of the national popular vote rather

than the winner in their states. there are currently 165 electoral votes represented. more than half needed. by the time they award the elector to the result of the national election, the compact would replace the current state constitution with an effective population. establishing presidential elections in which every vote counts and counts equally, incentivizing presidential candidates to campaign all over again even in safe blue states like california and safe and states like texas because you want to get every vote you can. th, dramatically increasing campaigning and driving up voter turnout everywhere. five, reducing the incentives for electoral corruption in the handful of swing states. he goes on to talk about the

critics of the national popular vote who defend the way the college is working today. notays defenders are troubled by the fact that sometimes there is a dissonance between the popular vote and electoral college about. then, there is a constitutional argument. do states have the power to do it? the argument is that states don't have the power because they are bound to cast their electors only in accordance with how a plurality of the states preferred. this constitutional argument defines the plain language and history of the operations. the winner take all system is nowhere to be found and was never debated at the constitutional convention. it was used by only three of the first 13 states when the first presidential election took place. there have been a whole lot of ways of awarding popular vote. there is no reason to require winner take all. is an 1842 statute that

requires a single-member districts for congress. you could even have different ways of designing congressional districts and would not have to type electoral votes to that system. that is the beginning of answer to your question about whether or not it is a good idea to have the national popular vote and also whether there is the power. jamie does not recognize a further argument against the initiative, which is that you would need congressional consent for any interstate compact. the national popular vote recognizes the power to form interstate contacts with congressional consent. sarah's question about whether this compact could go into effect without congressional consent. requiresne section 10 congressional consent for contracts. it is not clear, the current

congress. with the senate in the hands of republicans would be unlikely to ratify the compact even if it were passed. that would be a further hurdle. host: to sykesville, maryland, good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i have a couple of comments. we allst would be that go out there to vote and you have the popular vote. the concern is written such that the end of the day, each state will have to electors. they will have to come out to cast the votes. to now find out that for whatever reason, an electric can decide to do otherwise then represent the people for which they are supposed to cast those votes for, that is the scariest thing i could ever think of. i would have never thought that was a possibility. here we are.

that is the situation. the other thing. as we cannot tell, the country is really divided right now. social media and the media is obviously part of the reason why that is the case. that is where c-span also comes to play. c-span is a great platform where people can air their views, but i think there is also the danger that anybody can just call in and say anything. 90 present at the time, whatever they say goes unchallenged. people voted in pennsylvania. all sorts of crazy things. these are the kind of things that cause even more division because people believe those things. meanwhile, we know that it is not true. there is nobody there to at least push back. again, part of the division we are experiencing is because a lot of things get said on tv and

no pushback. i really think it is part of one of the problems we are having in this country. i don't know what the solution is going to be, but something needs to be done as far as people calling in and saying anything. thank you. host: thank you. within people being able to call and offer their opinions is a feature of the system we have set up. appreciate your feedback. we covered faithless electors a little bit earlier in the segment. i wonder if we can focus on the electors themselves. in usa today, on their piece on the meeting of electoral college, they note that most electors are not household names, but some are more well-known such as stacey abrams will be an elector today. the wisconsin governor. new york's governor. former president bill clinton and hillary clinton will be electors in new york today. how are these folks chosen? guest: different states have different ways of choosing them.

activists, political officials, donors, people with close relationships to the candidates. basically, you want to ensure they are going to vote for the candidates they are pledged to support, avoiding the problem our last color properly flagged. they tend to be people with very close connection to the parties. lake charles, louisiana. i am sure you are familiar with the contention that the electoral college is so rooted in the electoral college illegitimate. if one accepts that line of -- the 3/5 compromise

and validate the electoral college, does it delegitimize both? or just neither. guest: that is an extremely question. as you say, the electoral rooted in the history of slavery, just to read the language again. the number of electors is equal to the whole number of senators .nd representatives they may be entitled to the congress and therefore, states like virginia, which were slaveowning states which counted their slaveowning states as 3/5 of a person got and electoral college boost and that is why something like the first five presidents were from virginia. seven out of the first nine, they basically, everyone was from virginia at the beginning because of this boost. you say isn't that an argument against the senate as well?

is, to some degree. that was part of the desire for small states to accept the senate as a compromise, was to preservetheir power to slavery, but not entirely, because as we think about it, virginia, led by madison and so forth, wanted popular election, both houses of congress. they wanted a system that would have favored the biggest states where it was the smaller states like new jersey, and william patterson was the leader of the effort. which, we are not primarily concerned about slaveholding champions. i think we can say the senate was not primarily a slaveholding system, but you make a good point that some agree there is a boost in the original system that came from enslavement. it certainly would have operated

before the abolition of slavery in the 13th amendment. that is worth putting into the mix. as a result, any defense of electoral college today would have to strongly make clear there was no residual boost to those former slaveholding states. and would have to have other grounds. maybe that is why this is a good time to note jim caesar's arguments, the founders arguments for the -- he said the founders have four main objectives for the electoral college. first, it was greeted to provide the presidency with its own base of support. second, the founders aside as a aces of legitimacy for the president. electors were still representative having the discretion to choose among the most fit of the candidates. the founders were especially concerned about the election of

a demagogue. finally, the electoral system was meant -- made to channel -- thoughte those who hamilton dismissively referred to as resorting to acts of popularity. i read that because professor caesar does give us original justifications for the electoral college that are independent of the slaveholding boost or bonus. those are worth putting into the mix. host: for folks who want to follow-up up on the scholarship you have been citing, constitutioncenter.org. time for one or two phone calls. the president and ceo of the national constitution center is in pennsylvania. caller: i know you're in a hurry. i was really discouraged to the last election.

i am voted into my position. i really had thought about not even doing it again because i seen so many people i thought was disenfranchised like our college kids that drove all the way up from -- up to eerie from pittsburgh or wherever to vote. their votes actually did not count. i was early disheartened last time. the main reason i'm calling is because i thought you had said these electors that represent us voters, the electors, if they do not vote the way the voters ask them to, if they say ok, we are going to vote for whoever we think, they only get fined $1000? that is it. there's all kinds of people that would pay them more than that to change their vote. i don't think that is enough. i seriously think jail time or something should be associated with that and i do think the electoral college it be abolished. i don't think we should have it anymore. host: before you go, how me

times have you been a judge of elections? voted in every few years. readily eight years now. host: you said you have thought about not even doing it again. what brings you back? caller: i actually sent a letter to my county telling them i was so disheartened. i see so many kids and so many people that voted and i just felt very disheartened. host: are you going to do it again? caller: i did. i did it for this election. lot and i am very involved with the electoral process. i really want to keep involved in it. it just was very disheartening and i really do want this to be abolished. thank you and i appreciate your comments. host: penalties for faithless electors? guest: first of all, thank you so much for your service and thank you for sharing your concerns, which are indeed, distressing for the reasons that you described.

i just checked, pennsylvania, our swing state, is not one of those states that punishes faithless electors. there are 33 states in pennsylvania is not among them. therefore, electors in -- we reada would be the numbers, it has never made a significant difference in american history. all i think we need to do is to say, i am now reading from a list of the 20 pennsylvania democrats. as it happens, i know some of them. now, i know you as well. great call. the pennsylvania attorney general is one of the pennsylvania electors along with former state senators.

my friend connie williams, state house members and so forth. as a result, the mayor of scranton and members of the philadelphia city council. we can be pretty confident these public servants are not going to be faithless and they will vote toward the candidate who won the state of pennsylvania. joe biden. it has been a time where public servants like you and like our federal judges and like our state elections officials, who account balance, have behaved with great devotion to the rule of law and the institutions have inked, and by doing your job a nonpartisan fashion, because of your devotion to the united , we have america ensured our election was free and fair and that a democracy will survive. please keep doing that important work and thank you very much for

your service. host: in the time we have left here, if there were faithless electors and enough to change the outcome in certain states, we should note that the electoral college vote today is not actually the end of the process. you talked about this at the beginning. a reminder that january 6, congress meets in a joint session and the vice president will preside in his role as president of the senate. can you talk about what could happen there if there were enough faithless electors to change the results? could that be one last place to ensure that the election came out in the results that happened on election night? guest: let's talk about january 6. that is the time when congress meets to count the votes. is, will thereon be objections to any of the electoral votes? submitted in writing and signed

by at least one member of the house and one senator? you need concurrence by at least one house and senate member to file an objection. is an objection to any state's witness over, the house and senate withdraw to their respective chambers to consider the merits. there is debate for two hours unless the houses change their rules. separately.ote you need both houses separately agreeing to the objection, otherwise, the objection fails and the votes are counted. been invokede has twice since the enactment of this 1887 law. the first was an example of a faithless elector problem in 1969. toepresentative objected accounting the vote of an elector from north carolina who was faith was. he was both, vote for richard nixon, but instead voted for

george wallace. they allowed the faithless electors vote to be counted, but it didn't make a difference and nixon one. -- won. votingond was supposedly irregularities in ohio. chamber is separated and they rejected the objection. what could happen today? some house members have said they are going to reject and it is possible they could get us a -- a senator to join them. senator rand paul has indicated he might. that would mean both houses would separate. they would debate whether or not to accept pennsylvania's electoral votes if one of those people alleges voter fraud as they may allege. you would need both the house and senate to agree and reject the challenge. since the house is democratic and also since the senate, several senators have indicated they believe vice president

biden was properly elected, you might be unlikely to get a majority of the senate either. it is extremely unlikely given the house's composition. i would say chances are basically near zero that the slate would be ejected and that although there may be more drama on january 6 just as there is today, in the end, i think we can predict that any objections will be rejected and vice president pence presiding over the sun as the presiding officer, ultimately, will receive the tabulation from the counters we can expect the vice president joe biden will be recognized as the president of the united states. host: that certification process will play out on the floor of the house before the cameras. for today, it is the electoral college vote in state capitals around the country. you can watch that live here on c-span starting in indiana at 10:00 eastern, delaware at

11:30, pennsylvania at noon. you can spend your day watching the electoral college vote counts on c-span, c-span.org and listen to them on the free c-span radio app. for now, jeffrey rosen, do appreciate your time. we will see back down the road. thanks for helping us understand the electoral college process. guest: thanks for having me and thank you to the c-span viewers for educating yourself about the constitution. appreciate that. moments of the segment from washington journal and retake you to dover, delaware next, in the counting of the state's three electoral votes. the electoral college meeting today across the country. live coverage on c-span.