Mr Secretary. Thank you for your time today. Absolutely great to be with you in the fight against election fraud. Some secretaries have pivoted into *** fight over how fraud is detected. And I'm talking about Eric, the electronic registration Information Center. Some states participate by sharing voter registration information trying to catch double voting or people registered to vote in multiple states. Your state is not in it, why not? So we looked at it coming into office. Uh The previous administration decided not to join Eric, when I got into office, we, we wanted to kind of look at it and, and decide is this something good or something not? Uh the cost up front was an issue for us on the, on the front end of it. And we also thought about are there things that we can do or ways that we can uh work in Mississippi where we don't need to join this *** great example. Just last week, we met with Alabama and so some of the states now are starting to talk between each other uh forming mo us where we would do that work between ourselves. And I think you're gonna see that grow across the country. Uh But that's one of the reasons that we didn't do it on the front end again, the expense of it. But now, uh looking at these mo us with separate states to do it with ourselves, uh would be probably the model I think you'll see coming forward, memorandums of understanding you're talking about Alabama because it's *** neighboring state. That's right. Um But what if somebody moves from Maine? What if somebody moves from Washington or Illinois? I think it expanded that. I think our, our obviously number one concern right now is our neighboring state. So, uh I got *** meeting coming up with Tennessee as well. Arkansas, Louisiana. So once we have those surrounding states, I think we can grow it from there. And I think you will see *** more regional approach. Uh and as that grows then we'll see maybe *** national approach. But uh it's something that we're very aware of and something we wanna make sure that we're approaching uh smart and, and uh consider it uh of, of expense of our tax dollars, but also making sure that our voters are safe. Now. I don't have the numbers from Mississippi in front of me for Kentucky was $40,000 *** year, which, you know, if they have *** $14 billion budget, that's not really much money. Uh But how much was it for Mississippi if you know off the top of your head and could you do anything cheaper than that? Yeah. So on the front end, I think it was *** $30,000 expense to, to buy into, er, and then, uh, the expenses after that, depending on obviously the usage and how much we worked with them on that. Um, cheaper. Uh, I think working with are separate states. I think it would be cheaper than man hours may increase, but we already have folks on staff that can do that. So hopefully we can approach it in *** smart way. OK. Let me ask you about another issue of concern here at the National Association of Secretaries of State Conference. We have spoken before about misinformation and disinformation. So I'd like to ask you about the new frontier in disinformation, Artificial intelligence. *** I def fakes. Are you worried about *** I or DEF fakes, misleading voters in your state? I am uh you know, look, we saw uh all kind of different parties uh really involve themselves in that information uh disinformation campaign in 2020. Uh You're gonna see it more often. Uh We were just talking today and uh one of our sessions about *** I and then the uh power that that's gonna have. Uh There are good things that *** I can do but there are also some negative things as well. So when you think about voter registration, when you think about other things that *** I could come in and attack uh that's obviously gonna drive our concerns. So we're going to be prepared though. We're doing our due diligence, making sure we understand how this can impact our elections and being safe on the front end of it and working with our partners to make sure that we all have the right information and we all work together as *** team. Another item of concern election workers, the Brennan Center for Justice in April released survey results 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 to 1 to 2 election officials quitting per day since the 2020 presidential election because of threats or because of disinformation, COVID, et cetera. Are you experiencing higher than normal turnover of election workers in your state? I don't think so. Uh And we've really amped up our efforts in those areas. We have *** poll worker portal uh where we have Mississippians all over the state signing up to work in different elections. Uh We've now started talking to our businesses and saying, look, you want good *** good government to have *** good government. You gotta have good, clean, fair elections to have good clean, fair election. You got to make sure that your employees are participating. And as we've all seen, the wiser folks are typically the ones working in the polls. So we need *** new younger generation that are going to be active in making sure that we have good clean, fair, safe elections. So by incorporating our businesses, getting them to make sure that they're really emphasizing that the younger employees, we've seen *** growth in folks that are coming out to work in the polls. So I do have some questions from our station in Jackson, Mississippi, if you don't mind. Um They would like to know why is Mississippi one of the few states 11 that does not have any type of online voter registration in this digital era that we live in. So right now, technically, you can go to our website and download the form to register and then mail it in. It's not online, but it's pretty close. If you're an active voter, you can make changes to your voter registration already online. We've talked about that. I think there is some resistance when you hear the word online, you know, tied to voting, people are uh their concerns raise *** little bit. So it's gonna be an *** education effort that we've got to do around the state. Uh We've been talking about that already when I go to different places and I talk to folks about, hey, look, we need to make sure that we're thinking through this. Uh Let's be uh smart about the ways that we're changing the way people vote or register to vote. Uh Is this something that's gonna benefit one party or the other? I don't think so. Uh When we talk to states like Ohio and others that already have no voter registration. Uh It doesn't generate any uh additional, uh you know, help to one side or the other. It, it's, it's pretty much neutral. Uh So being able to explain those things, cleaner voter rolls and making sure it's easier for folks to register to vote. Uh Those are the, the bright sides of it. But again, you still have that little bit of pushback when you say online tied to anything doing with voting. So you're looking at it. Could you have true online voter registration up by the presidential election next year? I don't think they have it by next year. Uh But I think it's gonna be *** conversation that's being had more often around the state. Ok. And finally, is there any legitimate proof of online voter registration fraud or voter fraud in Mississippi to support the decision? Well, we don't have all the voter registration. So I don't think there can be any fraud right now. There is election fraud. It's not widespread, but we've seen cases around the state. So it's something that people need to be concerned about. And if people tell you there is no fraud, they're lying to you. But as we've talked in our interviews, you and I, there is no widespread fraud in Mississippi that would have changed the results of any race, right? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, any race. We talk about *** national level Now, when you get down to *** closer level, it's ***, uh, school board election and it's one or two votes. Uh, then you might, could see some, uh, misleading information out there that says there's no voter fraud that could impact this again, every vote counts. So, if it's more than one or if it's one that's too many. Has there been any race though where that happened? I'm not aware of any right now, but we also have seen, uh, different, you know, there was 43 affidavit. Uh, again, I won't get too much into legal pieces of it but, uh, we have seen incidents around the state that could have changed, uh, uh, an election but unfortunately, uh, we can't talk much about those legal cases. Mr Secretary. Thank you for your time. You're welcome.