Mr Secretary. Thank you for your time. Pleasure in the fight over election fraud. There has been this pivot among some secretaries to fighting about how to detect election fraud. I'm talking about Eric, the electronic registration Information Center. Some states including yours have decided to part ways with the group. The group typically takes information from the various states tries to detect double voting or people registered to vote in multiple states. Why did you decide to leave? Well, I'm actually *** big supporter of the concept that Eric offers. I was involved when we first did the first state compact back in 1994 cross check and unfortunately, we stumbled *** few times during that period and Eric has been much more successful. Unfortunately, in recent years, we found that we're having other states pulling out for some reasoning. Uh But frankly, from their perspective is they thought Eric was doing more than just dealing with the integrity side. They were promoting *** lot of other initiatives that they didn't want to be *** part of. For me, it's all about what's best for Iowa and the fact that when Texas and Florida and uh my some of my neighboring states pull out of it. I'm not left with anything. There's, there's nothing there of value for me, uh, to be able to do the cross match checks because the States I need aren't *** part of the, of the process. So I've gotta do what's best for Iowa. And so we have, uh, are going to take that same kind of funding and we're kind of figure out different ways to deal with, uh, how we can make sure we keep the integrity going. Correct me if I'm wrong though, that there is no question that Eric stopped fraud or allowed states to detect possible fraud. Right. Eric was certainly was *** good tool in getting that done. Uh, the main thing I would give them credit for is they put up systems to encourage states to do certain things, to keep the cleanest list they can and also to do more outreach. If you will to clean their lists up those initiatives won't go away just because we're not *** member of ***, we'll keep doing those. We will continue that. But our legislature in Iowa has also stepped up and changed our processes that allows us to keep our list much cleaner and more up to date. Uh, and that almost in some ways makes it, we don't need the Eric effort anymore. Uh, the only thing we're missing right now is the, we'd like to have the cross match concept and know if other states have double voters if you will. And uh that's where day and I hope we can keep that dialogue going and maybe get some of these states to, to either come back to Eric, which would be more, more advantageous for Iowa to be *** part of it or we will reach out and partner with the states around us directly to do it. So there's still about two dozen states in it. So if there's no dispute that it caught fraud, and if it's the only tool to find double voting, why not stay with it even in *** diminished state, because the states we need that information from, were no longer part of it. So I wasn't getting from Maine to very few, very few. I mean, the, the majority of them really are for us, the snowbirds we call them are the ones who go to Texas and go to Florida and, and those particular locations, Arizona, those are our biggest states uh that we see that cross checking or we need that information. So we're having conversations with them directly right now for *** data exchange to keep the process going. And I'm hopeful we'll get that done. You're saying you're not getting your bang for your buck. Well, certainly we're not getting the bang for the buck and, and I don't want to have *** false illusion that it's, that it's happening when, in fact, it's not getting done. We're here at the National Association of Secretaries of State that you are *** past president of this association, it seems like every time I've been here for the last five years, misinformation and disinformation has been *** big topic of discussion. Let me ask you about the new frontier of disinformation, artificial intelligence. *** I deep fakes. Are you worried that *** I and DEF fakes can be used to mislead voters in your state? Well, I think it's similar situation as we started encountering about six years ago on the whole cyber side, this was, this is *** big, vast unknown for so much of, for so many of us, we're going to have to have *** significant learning curve to demonstrate what are we going to do to prepare for that? Frankly, I think the first impact is going to be for the candidates, the campaign side for us. Yes, we have to take it seriously as we do any cyber threat. And that's why we're having this conference this week here in DC, in which we're starting that process of putting all the right players together in the room so that we can start collecting the information we need so that we can start to get, try to get ahead of the curve as much as we can. Uh No one would have thought quite frankly, you know, again, back wind the clock back *** decade ago when Schwarzenegger came out with his first movie about *** I that we'd be talking that kind of stuff for real. But it is here and I think we will take it very seriously as we go forward. I think it came up in *** secretary's only meeting on the first day of this conference. It was the first topic, first topic up and, and I had some strong opinions on it and expressed those that we have some good partners out there, whether it would be the Council of State Governments or whether it be our county partners, the Cisco, the Federal Government, there's *** lot of partners. Just as we've done with Cyber, we brought those partners to the table and said, ok, let's, let's get this rolling and make sure we were communicating and identifying what we need to because we are *** critical infrastructure elections are. And as I've been out front on wanting us to be *** trusted source, uh *** I is definitely gonna be one of those things that we're gonna have to stay on top of. You're the top election official in Iowa one day. There could be *** deep fake of you saying, you know what, I've moved the election from Tuesday to Wednesday. You're right. And, and, and then we have to be ready for it just as we've had done already in the past on *** much simpler level. If you will, when people put out false information to the internet, uh we have to be on our, our top gay game to counter it and make sure people know where that trusted source is at. And those are the things we are going to have to roll our sleeves up and, and just really get uh as creative as we can. But also we've got to respect things like the First Amendment. You know, these are all, it's *** balancing act. We work from every day to make sure you're getting the facts and not get distracted with. Uh uh the latest *** I uh tool that comes out. Let's talk about another challenge. The Brennan Center for Justice in April released survey results that found about one in five election workers 20% say they're planning to quit before next year's presidential election. That's equivalent to one or two election workers quitting per day. They said since the 2020 presidential election which saw you those unprecedented threats, disinformation, COVID, et cetera. Are you expecting higher than normal turnover of election workers in your state? I don't believe we will, but I think it's very unfortunate when I hear some of my, my friends and associates in other states who are facing that challenge in Iowa. We have about 10,000 plus poll workers. When we do *** statewide election, we've always been challenged with their aging, they're getting older. Uh COVID was *** real test for us, but we found that we literally went out and recruited thousands of new people who stepped up to be *** part of that process. Uh My focus this election cycle is making sure we are training them with the latest and the best information because the poll workers are the front line. You want to talk about every level of integrity of an election, the poll workers, it, it's your friend and neighbor out there running in that election day. And uh so we want to make sure we get the tools to be successful, but on the, on the recruiting side and on having enough people, I think we got it in our state. Finally, sir. What is your top priority for your next statewide election? Well, it's the two fold one that I mentioned and that is making sure we've trained our poll workers and also to continue promoting the fact that for *** trusted source of the facts our office is at and my counterparts on each county level where you can turn to, to make sure you're getting the answers to know what's going on in the elections. Was it under your leadership as president hashtag trusted info? 2020. Yes, that's right. And then it was 2022 now, 2024. And the work is never done it 24 7, 365 days *** year because there's an election going on all the time somewhere, Mr Secretary. Thank you for your time. Thank you.