communications. >> broadband is a force for empowerment. that is why charter has invested billions, empowering opportunity in communities big and small. charter is connecting us. charter communications supports c-span as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> this is molly reynolds of the brookings institution here to talk about an effort to change how electoral votes are counted. it goes back to something called the electoral act of 1887. can you describe what that is? >> it is the federal law that we have currently that governs how the electoral votes themselves get counted at the very end of

the presidential election. one of the things that the reform effort is trying to do is modernize the language of the act and take some steps to clarify some provisions that are in their that we learned might be vulnerable to some manipulation. but generally, the way the law works is it provides for what should happen on january 6 when the vice president is in the congressional chamber counting the electoral votes. >> it goes also in connection to the constitution.

it goes on from there. talk about that connection. >> requires congress to meet to tabulate the votes. it is the law that says if one member of the house and one member of the senate objects to the states then the joint session shall divide and each chamber shall debate the objection. the original law has some provisions on how that works in the senate. >> why did congress feel like it was needed at the time? >> it is in the aftermath of contested elections from the

middle of the 19th century. that is when congress stepped in to say we need to make clear exactly how this should work. host: this is our guest and she will talk about this process of accounting electoral votes. >> what exactly is the role of the vice president? there was a lot of pressure on vice president pence to assert

authority that he did not have under the law. one of the things that this effort to reform the law says is that it is purely ministerial. his job is to open the envelopes, read the submissions from the state. he does not have any discretion over which votes get counted. that is one thing the january 6 episode highlighted. a second is around the question of objection. one of the things we saw in january 6 was an effort for groups of house members and senators who object to the counting votes. under the current law, you need only one house member and one senator to sign on to an objection for that to trigger a

division of the joint sessions. one of the things the reform proposal does is it raises a from one to 1/5 of each body. it is a large change. it is to reduce the trivial objections. the proposal also clarifies what is an objection that congress should be raising. what are the circumstances under which we think an objection is legitimate. it tries to reduce the chances that we see these trivial objections through the submission of electors. host: back to the vice president.

is the current law ambiguous in the way that he serves in ministerial role or whether he can serve further than that? that was a question from the president's team as well. guest: most legal experts would say that the current law does not give the vice president any latitude. it is clear that in the run-up to january 6 there was a lot of pressure from folks inside the white house on president -- on vice president pence to take a different interpretation of the law. this proposal makes as clear as possible that the vice president's job is ministerial in the counting of the votes. host: just to show you some of those provisions we will talk more about throughout the segment as far as the format of 2022, it would make sure that the vice president performs in a ministerial role, it would ensure a single conclusive state

of electors including governors being responsible for submitting those state of electors. it will provide an expedited judicial review of claims and raises the threshold. we will talk more about that as we go on. if you want to ask questions, you can do so on the line. you can also text us at (202) 748-8003. mobile, alabama, republican line, this is bill. you are on with our guest. go ahead. caller: it is obvious that those people who wanted to stop trump chose not to follow this law. in the future, if there is a law and they want to stop somebody, why do you think they would follow that law? guest: it is a great question and it illustrates one of the challenges of lawmaking around votes and lawmaking generally,

which is that you can write all the laws you want, but there are limits to what you can expect in terms of or there may be limits in terms of what you can expect. one of the goals of this act, this reform proposal that we have not talked much about yet, is this idea of what has been called a federal court backstop. one of the things that proposal provides for is that there is a dispute in a state around a slate of electors. it puts forth an expedited federal judicial review process for that dispute and it says specifically that if there is a dispute in federal court between competing states of electors, what the court says is what goes and that is this late that congress has to count, that is what congress has to follow. no law is perfect.

there are questions about specific provisions of this law and this proposal. one of the things that it really tries to do is anticipate some of those possibilities, some of those places where folks might try to manipulate the process and say we are going to tighten things up as much as we possibly can. host: as far as the framework, is it a single judge that would review it? is there a panel? guest: it calls for a three-judge panel with expedited and prescribed review to the supreme court, if necessary. host: let's go to patty in wisconsin, independent line. hi. caller: thank you. i need a civics lesson because sometimes i feel like a popular vote is not representative of the electoral vote. i feel like at times my vote has

been canceled out. can you explain the popular and the electoral? thank you. guest: absolutely. the way that we select the president in the united states does involve the electoral college. each state has a certain number of electoral college votes and it is the number of seats they have in the house of representatives plus two to account for their senators. in each state, the process of determining who gets those electoral college votes, that is what is done by the popular vote. for the caller in wisconsin, you go to the polls. so do your neighbors across the state on election day. you cast your ballot and whoever wins the most votes in wisconsin gets wisconsin's electoral vote. there are a couple of states where the electoral vote can be split at the congressional district level. whichever candidate gets the

most popular votes in a congressional district gets some of the electoral college votes. that is the process by which we select the president and the caller is right, that it can and has in recent years created disjuncture between who wins the most votes overall and who actually wins the presidency because we have this intermediate step in the electoral college. host: we have a viewer on twitter saying why recount how we count electoral votes? only in congress are they unable to count electoral votes. guest: one of the things that january 6, 2021 and the run-up to that exposed for us is that even though we have this law from 1887 and it reads like it is from 1887 but it is clear on what should happen.

if you have a group of folks who are determined to manipulate that law, there were some holes, some places where they could try to manipulate what was provided for. >> we are living this recorded program here. continue watching on c-span.org. now up to the white house press briefing for an update on president biden's covid-19 diagnosis. >> you might have heard a little hoarseness in his voice which the doctor mentioned as one of the few residual symptoms remaining. he was excited to discuss issues and was excited to take questions from you guys today. sec. jean-pierre: dr. o'connor provided another updaten