Madam Secretary. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. Let's talk about this fight against election fraud and how it has sort of pivoted for some of your colleagues to this fight over how to detect election fraud. I'm talking about er electronic registration Information center. It's *** group of some states that share voter registration information so that states can detect if there's double voting or if people are registered simultaneously in different states. Some of your colleagues mostly conservative are withdrawing their states from this collaborative. You have remained in one because to date, it is still the best tool that has ever been invented in the United States of America to prevent fraud. And when I speak with voters, I don't think most people are aware that these election databases are administered at the state level. And I think they just expect that um we uh the federal government has *** way to detect this type of fraud. So when I explain to them the details of they are surprised that any state would withdraw because it's the best tool we have. There's another concern that is being discussed here at the annual National Association of Secretaries of state and that is misinformation and disinformation. And so I'd like to ask you about perhaps the new frontier in disinformation, which is artificial intelligence. *** I deep fakes. Are you worried about artificial intelligence and deep fakes being used to fool voters in your state? I am worried um If you take something as simple as fishing, for example, um we have all learned how to detect *** fraudulent email. There's *** misspelling or, you know, the domain name looks *** little strange. Um or the phrasing doesn't sound right. And um this morning at this conference, we looked at um some fishing attempts that were generated via *** I where the phrasing is perfect, the language is perfect. So if you take something like that and you extrapolate that to misinformation or disinformation, people are not good at discerning things that are very obvious and I think they'll be less good at discerning um uh language or graphics uh that is created by *** I. So it does worry me. Well, we have seen def fakes of former president Barack Obama. We've seen def fakes once Russia invaded Ukraine of Ukrainian President Zilinski. And so it is *** real possibility that *** campaign could use *** def fake in the for the first time in *** presidential election. And it's, you know, this disinformation and misinformation are equally disturbing. Disinformation. Someone could come up with um uh content that is not legitimate but misinformation, someone could spread that without meaning to, they think it's real, which is why it's, this, uh, it's disturbing that you might not be able to discern if it's misinformation right now. You could do *** little research and dig into something and sort of figure it out. But it's very disturbing and I know all the secretaries across the country are starting to pay attention. It sounds like you're saying voters in your state have to do their own homework to make sure they're not duped. Yes, I'm saying that. But what I'm saying is that even when you do your homework, you may be duped anyway with *** I which is why it's disturbing and need some guard rails. There's another topic that worries election administrators like you and that is election workers and election officials, the Brennan Center for Justice in April released results from *** survey that found about one in five election workers. That's 20% said they plan to quit before next year's presidential election. That's equivalent. They said to 1 to 2 election officials quitting every day since the 2020 presidential election when they were faced with unprecedented threats, COVID, et cetera. Are you expecting higher than normal turnover of election workers in your state? We are, it's already started. Um We have 100 and 69 jurisdictions and this year uh 40 of those people were new. Um And when I go to regional meetings now and um ask you, you know, is everyone planning to stay almost *** third say they plan to leave before the presidential election. Um I think people are burned out. Um So it's incumbent upon all of us one to do what we can to keep people in the field, but also to attract new people to the field. One of your colleagues earlier today told me in an interview that they're worried that the turnover of election officials means that when they get less trained people in there, people with less experience that they may make an honest error that is then exploited by *** disinformation actor blown out of proportion. Says, see, look your elections are corrupt, this is fraud. But in reality, it's because it was an honest mistake. And I've said that even when I was running for office last year, I said there is *** big difference between fraud and mistakes, not only on the election administrator side, but on the voter side, voters make mistakes. We have an infamous case where um there was is *** gentleman who had two homes, one in Florida, one in Connecticut and he voted in both places. But in the court documents because of course we have checks and balances. This was found out. And in his hearing, he said, oh, but I only voted nationally on one ballot and locally on the other. And he thought that was fine. So voters make mistakes too, which is why not only is it important to protect election workers and make sure they have training, but that we are educating the public how elections work. And so what are you doing to retain the experienced election workers raising pay or doing *** recruitment campaign? How are you doing that in your state? We have no jurisdiction over that. They are hired directly. Our elections are administered at the municipal level. We have no county form of government. So we have no control over the hiring. Um our elections, et cetera of our election workers. Um So we are um I'm trying to be *** strong partner to them in advocating on their behalf to the legislature. Um the governor's office and with their uh town leaders to make sure they have the resources and the support that they need. Finally, what is your top priority for the next statewide election? My top priority is actually civic education. Um I think misinformation and disinformation have an easier time spreading when people are not um very well grounded in how these things work, how these systems work. Um And no one's taught that in Connecticut, we only have *** half credit requirement in high school. Um And what I say is that teaches people what the constitution is, but it doesn't teach them how voting works or how to fix *** pothole on their street, et cetera. So I'm trying to educate the public as my top priority, madam secretary. Thank you for your time. Thank you.