ben hovland is the vice chair of the u.s. election assistance commission. announcer: c-span's "washington journal," are live for him to discuss the latest issues and government, politics, and public policy from washington, d.c. and across the country. coming up monday morning, a political reporter discusses representative mike johnson's first week as speaker in the week ahead for congress. david becker with the center for election innovation and research talks about efforts on the state and federal level to boost voter education and confidence in the u.s. electoral system ahead of next fall's elections. "washington journal," join in the conversation live at 7:00 a.m. eastern monday morning on c-span, c-span now, or online at c-span.org. announcer: c-span is your unfiltered view of governmen we are funded by these television companies and more, including comcast. >> you think this is just a community center? it is way more than that. >> comcast is partnering with a 1000 community centers so students from low income families can get the tools they need to be

host: we are joined for the first time on the "washington journal" by ben hovland, vice chair of the assistance commission, or e.a.c. as it's known in d.c. speak. mr. hovland, on the e.a.c., background, how long has it been around? what's the mission of the election assistance commission? guest: thanks for having me. the election assistance commission is a small federal agency. not everyone's heard of it. we were created by the help america vote act of 2002. which was congress' response to the florida 2000 election. so they created the agency as an independent bipartisan agency. there are four commissioners. i'm one of those four. we were charged with a handful of missions. first, to test and certify voting equipment. to serve as the clearing-house for best practices in election administration. and to provide a number of surveys and research across the elections. the reality is elections are run at the state and local level across the country. our elections are very decentralized. part of our role is to look at the different ways that americans are getting registered. is that at the