Common Cause NC's Brooks Fuller on North Carolina's New Absentee Envelope Rule

Peter Pappas: Joining me today is Brooks Fuller with Common Cause North Carolina. In September, the state board of elections changed how it handles absentee ballots that come back with the inner envelope unsealed. A federal judge let that rule stand last week, and Common Cause is one of the groups that thinks it goes way too far. Brooks, thanks for making the time to be here today.

Brooks Fuller: Thanks, Peter. It's really good to be with you.

Peter Pappas: So just gonna dive right in. So in plain terms, what changed in September and what happens to a voter whose inner envelope isn't sealed?

Brooks Fuller: Yeah, right on the eve of absentee ballots going out, September fourth was the day that that happened across North Carolina, the state board issued new guidance that says that if there is a certain irregularity with the inner envelope and a ballot package that an absentee

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Brooks Fuller: by mail voter uses, that if that comes back either unsealed in the inner envelope or appears that it's been opened and resealed, then that whole ballot package has to be spoiled and then reissued. So that means that that particular package gets tossed, it gets disposed of, and then the voter is gonna get a new ballot in the mail, just as if they requested one originally. And so what happens after that is the vote the voter votes the new ballot when they receive it, or they can choose to vote earlier in person.

Peter Pappas: See, there you go, answering my follow-up. So how does the voter find out? So they're they are throwing them away, but they are automatically

Brooks Fuller: Yeah.

Peter Pappas: sending them back out. is there a cover letter that says, hey, you get a do-over this time,

Brooks Fuller: Mm-hmm.

Peter Pappas: seal the bot seal the envelope. So we're at least telling people you messed up, redo it.

Brooks Fuller: This is all done by the county boards. So the county boards

Peter Pappas: Okay.

Brooks Fuller: send all this guidance back. And then what's challenging about this for a lot of voters is that they're only going to get communications where they've told the county board that they can reach out to them. So if they've given an email address, if they've given a phone number, they can get contacted that way. And the county boards are instructed to do so, and they should. And but a lot of folks have only registered to vote and given a mail address for. for their mail. So some are gonna be a little bit at the mercy of the delay that's gonna come with the mail and some may not get their mail because they're gonna be you know off traveling or something. They put their absentee pattern in

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Brooks Fuller: the mail, they may not get it back. So that's when we run into some problems and folks having to navigate some hurdles after that.

Peter Pappas: Okay. Yeah, I it makes me think of the indigent people that are homeless that they, you know, they say like where's your location? It's like that bench,

Brooks Fuller: Mm-hmm.

Peter Pappas: you know, or they're able to use landmarks, I think, to register to vote. they're not gonna get their mail, for sure. well Judge Schroeder said the rule is printed right on the ballot materials, so it's it isn't a burden, and your side waited too waited too long to sue. What's your answer to that?

Brooks Fuller: yeah, yeah, yeah.

Peter Pappas: I l I like but yeah, your side. Your side the vi you know. Yeah. You waited.

Brooks Fuller: my answer on that is that the there's a couple things. I I don't want to play sides on this too much, but the state board had a long time to issue guidance. The state board also tried to do this through traditional rulemaking processes, and that was objected to over the summer. And a rule exactly like this was kicked to the legislature next year for legislative review. So it is in a process already.

Peter Pappas: Okay.

Brooks Fuller: And then at the very last minute, there was this numbered memo guidance, which would don't get to get too wonky, but it essentially has a lot of the same effect, but it's guidance at the very last minute through a declarative or through a directive, basically from the state board. And that's what came to the last minute, too. So it's, it's a little pot calling the kettle black in in that in that way. It feels like the procedural aspects are a little bit of a cop out. What really matters is the burden upon voters. We think that burden. is really significant. We think that there is this policy seems to be searching for, you know, a s a problem where there isn't one. I I think

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Brooks Fuller: we can get into that a little bit more too, but the the timeliness of it all to us that that rings a little bit.

Peter Pappas: Sure. So and so what I'm hearing is it's not a new issue, but the last minute our state not legislature, but our board of elections decided to go ahead and proceed with it. Now, one hundred counties in North Carolina, are all of them given boilerplate like you should do a letter, you should do this, you should do that, or is it up to each county board to decide how they're gonna reach back out to those spoiled ballot voters?

Brooks Fuller: They they all get guidance from the state board on how to do this.

Peter Pappas: Okay. Okay.

Brooks Fuller: in in in the vast majority of issues like this, it's boilerplate standard stuff, which is good. the the challenge

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Brooks Fuller: is the the practical experience for the voter is really where the challenge is, not even necessarily the guidance that comes back. It's well, what are what's the voter gonna have to overcome after they encounter this problem? That's where that's where the rub is.

Peter Pappas: Well, okay, so we're talking about a sealed inner envelope. Now I understand if the outside envelope was unsealed, I get that. But if the outside one's sealed and the in one is unsealed, that's enough to push it out.

Brooks Fuller: That's enough to chuck it under this new guidance.

Peter Pappas: Okay.

Brooks Fuller: And previously, you know, what the the guidance was from the state board was that the the Board of Elections and the staff at the Board of Elections should essentially use their best judgment to see if there's really like something that's gone wrong with this ballot where it's clear that it's been tampered with or it's cleared that something about the voter intent isn't being captured in the way that they received the ballot. and it allowed them to handle that on their own.

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Brooks Fuller: using that all the training that they get and all the guidance they get from the board. they do an annual conference where they talk about these things. They get a lot of guidance on stuff. So that was the old way to do this. And now, you also have this this issue about a a ballot that appears to have been open and resealed. Well I know I've heard from a couple of folks that work for voting rights organizations that and this is a little hearsay, but they're saying, you know, we have folks who are calling and telling us that the ballot is coming with the envelope already sealed. I have no choice but to open it up and and

Peter Pappas: Open it. Yeah.

Brooks Fuller: reseal it. So that may be a a fraction of of voters,

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Brooks Fuller: very, very small, but it it just illustrates how the guidance doesn't really solve the problem that they're trying to solve.

Peter Pappas: Well, it's still a low tech envelope. if it gets a little damp outside, it's gonna seal itself. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brooks Fuller: That is correct. In in North Carolina, humidity during hurricane season, you're absolutely right.

Peter Pappas: Yep. Well, the state board says so far that three point one percent of absentee ballots have been spoiled. That is up from two point six percent in twenty twenty-two. do you have account for and we have not prepared, by the way, anybody watching, so I'm just giving this to him fresh. do you have a count for unsealed envelopes specifically or even better for Cumberland County? Do you have any idea where these numbers are landing?

Brooks Fuller: So I I wish we did. the the way that we arrive at these numbers for the envelope issues is it has to be reported out by the county. Some counties actually don't even report this in their open meetings, and sometimes they don't actually include this information in their meeting minutes. So, and and if there's also not like a volunteer from someone like Common Cause or another organization that can go and hear what the

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Brooks Fuller: board has to say, we don't necessarily know all the reasons. Typically, what gets reported out is just the number of spoiled but not with any granular detail.

Peter Pappas: Not not the reasons. Okay, okay. Well, if they want to be specific on the rules, I'd like to see some specificity about the reporting. I'd like to know, is it a problem?

Brooks Fuller: It'd be really nice to know because I I think it would help the state board and the county boards know where they need to do a better job on voter education. if there's folks that are that are frequently messing up getting a witness, it'd be great to know that we need to reinforce that point. If

Peter Pappas: Sure.

Brooks Fuller: it's a signature issue, same thing. So yeah.

Peter Pappas: What about any idea? And this can just be anecdotal. I mean, how many of those voters you think they got spoiled have come back to vote? Do you think there's a high return of the people that 'cause I mean, people that vote absentee, they're usually pretty dedicated. I would call them probably a super voter. Like they know their stuff. They probably made a mistake, get spoiled, but do you have you have we seen activity? Is there any way to judge how many of these people have come back?

Brooks Fuller: Yeah. Yeah, the the state board will eventually be able to tell this whole story, not necessarily about

Peter Pappas: Okay.

Brooks Fuller: the sealed envelopes, but they'll be able to tell a whole story about someone who maybe requested a absentee ballot and then wound wound up voting by by in-person early voting or on election day

Peter Pappas: Okay.

Brooks Fuller: or with a new absentee ballot. So they would be able to tell this story with some data crunching. Right now,

Peter Pappas: Okay.

Brooks Fuller: it's it's honestly fairly early to tell about how this how widespread the problem is and exactly how many of these folks are going to be able to manage to. fix everything with their ballots. We did crunch some numbers earlier in the day about, total ballots that have some problems of some kind and the numbers that were fixed and cured. And those percentages are starting to creep up. But this again, this doesn't get to the issue of the guidance and the problems that's causing because so much of that is left unknown when you go to the county meetings. We're just not totally sure.

Peter Pappas: Well, that's unfortunate. this is a military community through and through. So we have to look out for our soldiers. what happens if a soldier or a spouse oversees the replacement ballot doesn't get back it so they send it in, gets spoiled, then another one gets sent out and it doesn't get back in time. What happens to that ballot?

Brooks Fuller: those Euacava voters have longer deadlines, longer timelines, they have more opportunity than voters that are civilian. And so there's a reason that they they treat those ballots differently at the absentee meetings. They segregate out the ones that have these problems that are UOCA. That's you know, uniformed officers and overseas citizens are UOCava voters. those voters will have a slightly different experience from, say, the civilian folks who may live, you know. Downtown Fayetteville and just stick it in the mail. So they'll they'll have more of an opportunity as the election season goes. They have different deadlines. But beyond that, the issue could still affect them the same, but there's

Peter Pappas: huh.

Brooks Fuller: more opportunity for those overseas voters to cure.

Peter Pappas: But now those voters, they're still bound to that ballot still has to be in by the canvas. Does it I mean,

Brooks Fuller: That's right.

Peter Pappas: there's still a deadline. I mean, even though

Brooks Fuller: Yes.

Peter Pappas: what's the deadline for absentees now? Is it election day?

Brooks Fuller: Election day at seven thirty PM.

Peter Pappas: Okay, so by close of business election day, if it's not in so if it shows up Wednesday morning, it's game over. Straight into the circular. Okay.

Brooks Fuller: That's right. And and then there's a there's a period of time after that, it's five business days to cure any deficiencies that are curable. But if they're not curable deficiency, that ballot is not.

Peter Pappas: That rule recently changed too, did it? Did it not?

Brooks Fuller: There there's a a whole host of those rules that are undergoing change. Yeah, but the the specific, you know that yes, yes, that changed

Peter Pappas: The five business day, I think, is the new cause it

Brooks Fuller: in an an act of the legislature House Bill eight thirty four or Senate Bill eight thirty Senate Bill eight thirty four.

Peter Pappas: Okay. Was that th this year?

Brooks Fuller: That was this year.

Peter Pappas: I feel like that was yeah, recent. So it went from what five days to five business days.

Brooks Fuller: It went from the third business day, which would been that Friday at about midday, to five business days, which is essentially the following Tuesday. It gives you a lot more time for sure. And the county boards

Peter Pappas: Right. Okay. Okay.

Brooks Fuller: were wanting this. The county directors lobbied really hard to get that change. There was the the law that set it to three days was Senate Bill 382 from way back, well way back, 2024. And then that's that's way back in legislature age. That's way back.

Peter Pappas: That that's that's that's like dog years and legislative years. Yeah, that's that's a long time ago. It's yes. Mm-hmm.

Brooks Fuller: Man, listen, yes, that's exactly how our legislature operates. We live lifetimes in there.

Peter Pappas: You sure do. so wrapping up with my questions, it's it look, it's nine days out. So if somebody listening has an absentee ballot on their kitchen table right now, what should they do today? I know what I would do, but go right ahead.

Brooks Fuller: Right now they should I'll tell you exactly what I tell you exactly what they should do first. The first thing they should do is look around at Cumberland County's early voting sites. Note that there are seven, that they were spread around the county. There are some that have changed since the last election, and it may not be a site anymore. they should look at those sites, they should look at those hours, and they should see if there's any way that they can go in person to early vote. That's the first thing they should do. They they should also note that if they are a voter with disabilities, that they have other rules that apply to them. They should call the nonpartisan, I'm gonna double down on that, nonpartisan voter assistance hotline, 888 hour vote. They may even talk to me about this and we can walk

Peter Pappas: Okay.

Brooks Fuller: through all of their options to get the ballot cast and counted and have their voice heard. And they will never, not once, have anybody ask them if they're a Republican or Democrat or libertarian. So that is one thing. Then if if they want to continue voting like they always have absentee, my advice is to just read those instructions really closely, get your witnesses lined up, vote the whole ballot, look at it front and back, seal everywhere that it instructs you to seal, write everything on the exact right line that it instructs you to do it. And then they can, if they have the ability, they can also take that ballot down to any early voting site and drop it off in person. And they even can turn to a near relative or again, if they're a voter with disabilities, anybody can do that for them. They just need to sign a form when they get there. There are a lot of

Peter Pappas: Right.

Brooks Fuller: options.

Peter Pappas: Right. No, absolutely. now what about the photo ID with absentee ballots? have to have a copy inside that envelope. But if you

Brooks Fuller: You have to have a copy of it. That's right. That's right.

Peter Pappas: take that ballot to the early voting site, they would just check it there and be done. You could just have your ID and just then they would accept the ballot. Okay. Okay. Okay. So

Brooks Fuller: You could show your Hava ID right there, your Help America vote act qualifying ID. Yep.

Peter Pappas: we still have the Hava ID in the state. Okay. did you get your your free voter registration card from your local board of board of elections when they started doing that last year? I did. I was numbers

Brooks Fuller: I sure did. Yeah?

Peter Pappas: I think I was number sixteen in the whole county after they'd done eight workshops around

Brooks Fuller: Mm-hmm.

Peter Pappas: different parts of town. Do you know how many of those have been issued? Any idea? No? Yeah.

Brooks Fuller: I don't actually, that's that's a good question, I'm not sure.

Peter Pappas: Well, everybody complains. No voter ID, no voter ID. I'm like, well, they were doing it for free, but nobody showed up.

Brooks Fuller: one thing that we love is when County Boards of Elections, when they fund this program to do mobile voter ID, they can go out to community colleges, they can go out to community events, and they could set up a a truck right there to print those

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Brooks Fuller: voter IDs out in the community. So you don't necessarily, depending on your county, you don't necessarily have to make it all the way down to the board of elections. These are great programs and folks should be encouraged to use them.

Peter Pappas: And your opinion or knowledge, have we continued funding those or is that county by county, state thing?

Brooks Fuller: That's gonna be county by county. And you know, there's there's always

Peter Pappas: County by county.

Brooks Fuller: an opportunity at the legislature to allocate money that's gonna be passed through to the counties to do the important things. that funding cycle just ended, you know, it's it's been fairly flat on that front,

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Brooks Fuller: but counties have the ability to fund it if that's a priority for sure.

Peter Pappas: Well, we needed a last minute win on the gas tax. So we needed to do that as we shut off the lights out of session to repeal the gas tax a little bit. Save three hundred and sixty two million dollars, I think. But it wasn't politically motivated at all. It wasn't right before the election type. I love that. It's like d you know, the nothing to see here. No, don't don't look. But the only time they got almost unanimous, I think it was one fifty two to one, I think was the vote on that. So yeah,

Brooks Fuller: A couple tiny holdouts, yeah.

Peter Pappas: yeah, a c a few. So listen, I jumped right into my questions. Now tell me about your yourself and your role at at your organization. Tell us what common cause does and why I shouldn't be pointing at you, so calling you the the other side. So go right ahead.

Brooks Fuller: Well, the fur I think the first thing you know is I'm I'm no carpet bagger. So my my mama was an inaugural graduate of Terry Sanford High School when it first opened back in the 70s. Yep. So got Fayetteville roots there. My granddaddy moved back to Fayetteville after serving in World War Two. And my grandmama is from Wagram. So not a lot of people not

Peter Pappas: wow. Okay.

Brooks Fuller: a lot of people ever heard of Wagram. granddad's actually born and raised in Rayford, so in anyhow. All that is to say I'm a North Carolina kid, come by all this honest, good or bad or indifferent. All all of it is from my folks.

Peter Pappas: Right.

Brooks Fuller: and then what I'll say about Common Cause is that Common Cause has been around North Carolina for a couple of decades. It is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization. We do tend to support causes that are left-leaning, tend to support progressive causes. But one thing that where we support causes that are to the benefit of all, at least in our view. is to try to improve access to the ballot, make sure that voters are well educated, make sure that the rules that we have for voting are secure, are, gonna lead to integrity, but also aren't going to lock anybody out of the ballot box. That's one of the

Peter Pappas: Sure.

Brooks Fuller: most important things.

Peter Pappas: Okay. And your role as policy director, was that correct?

Brooks Fuller: I'm the policy director there. So the bulk of the bulk of what I do is go down to the legislature on our behalf. If there's elections bills going on, I go and speak to members of the General Assembly about those and talk through our perspectives on those bills. We also do a lot of work in the counties advocating for better elections funding and trying to get it so that election directors are well paid, well compensated, make it so that they can fund elections and improve. know the number of early voting sites and things like that. So those are a couple of our big priorities. Election funding season is next year. they a lot of people think that it only happens in the even numbered years, but next

Peter Pappas: Right.

Brooks Fuller: year, next year the the county commission is going to hear from the elections director about how much money they need to run the 2028 election. And we're going say we need to fund as many poll workers and positions and early voting sites so that this huge election that's going to be barreling down on us is really working

Peter Pappas: So you mentioned Board of Election Director salaries, and we've had some few kerfuffles here down in Cumberland County with our board and some turnover. I personally were I was a precinct judge for like eight, ten years. I did that, and a good way to meet your neighbors for sure.

Brooks Fuller: Yeah. Thank you for that.

Peter Pappas: you know, I and hey, I had I enjoyed it. It was a long day, but I I had a pretty good crew, so we had our crap together. After a while you just get a rhythm. But how did Cumberland County like okay, how widely does it vary across the state for how we're compensating these boards of election directors? I mean, is it like some counties are paying thirty and some are like two hundred? Or I mean, how wide is that gap do you think? Could it be?

Brooks Fuller: Peter, I think you I think you did your homework. Yeah. There are some counties in some of our more economically distressed counties, our low population counties, where you've got directors that are making right around teacher salary. You've got county directors in say like Mecklenburg and Wake, and you know, bigger counties like that in Durham, where the salaries are up 180, 190, close to 200, really well paying jobs. Actually, we we talked with the Office of the State Auditor a a lot about this issue. And one of the areas, we try to find the daylight where we can agree left, right, center, where we really need to do some work. And one of those areas is making it so that our elections directors want to stay in that job for a long time. You know, the you talked about the kerfuffle that you have in Cumberland County. One of the ways that you minimize kerfuffle is by getting, you know, people like yourself who did an eight-year stint as a poll worker. To get into the business of running elections. You get a lot of institutional knowledge. You get a lot of people who have passion for the job, want processes to run well. That's how you get better election integrity. You have a lot of opportunity for people to cut their teeth early on as poll workers and work their way up in county government. Hopefully in a job that's got great benefits, that's gonna keep you here, that's gonna not result in brain drain. that's what we want in all Hunter Counties is to have the folks running elections or the folks who have been doing it. for decades and have really made a career off of it. The better we do that, the better our elections run, quite frankly.

Peter Pappas: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I was very, very concerned as we had turnover, having been a candidate and having, you know, worked for the board, you know, before, just the institutional knowledge that we had that we lost. And people are fallible, they will

Brooks Fuller: Yeah.

Peter Pappas: make mistakes, and that's on both sides of that coin of what happened here. but I I'm concerned going into this election, but because I have the knowledge of working, I'm not so concerned. Like I've had to actually step through what would it take to really cheat these ballots? I'm sorry, but I had to go straight criminal on it. And I don't think we can get enough people to keep their mouth shut in one precinct to really influence much. So I feel good about I feel

Brooks Fuller: Okay.

Peter Pappas: I feel good about our integrity in Cumberland County that I can say. Now, statewide, does everybody have the same paper ballot type and the DS two or three hundred machine that feeds them?

Brooks Fuller: There's some there's some deviation on the different types

Peter Pappas: Okay.

Brooks Fuller: of tabulators and technology and ballot style and all of that. what doesn't deviate much is the level of security that you just described that goes into securing an election. I mean, the

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Brooks Fuller: the closing procedures at the end of every day that a chief judge and the rest of the election staff at that polling place have to go through to make sure

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Brooks Fuller: that everything's secure. and some recent changes in state law that kind of double down on that make our elections incredibly secure.

Peter Pappas: Yeah, I I

Brooks Fuller: The they're

Peter Pappas: try well, people lose their minds over so one thing I wanted to mention is if you could please, sir, start telling people to turn their ballots over first and go from the bottom up. I know that y'all want good national races, but you know, I'm sick and tired of electing the wrong dog catcher or whatever else because those are the people they're in our pockets most often. The city count the city council, the county commissions, the soil and water board. think

Brooks Fuller: I'm glad you said that.

Peter Pappas: things that people just don't think about. Now, by the time election has come, I will have interviewed close to, I want to say about 40 candidates that we've spoken to. And it's important for people to see the long form of why these people deserve or don't deserve your vote and how they could earn it. you can't get it in a three minute or minute thirty soundbite like at the Chamber of Commerce you know, forum. It's I want to see the long form. Can they handle it? And we don't see that enough from our candidates, but definitely start from the bottom, work your way up. My goodness. So anything you'd like to add about common cause, any events you have come I mean, we have a big event, the Super Bowl of all Super Bowls, the election on November third. anything you wanna add for Common Cause?

Brooks Fuller: Yeah, a couple things. So one of the things that's in important that we do, and we've been doing this program for a w a while now, is putting our volunteers out into the community to attend county canvas meetings, you know, to make sure the processes are being followed and just to have folks educate themselves and learn

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Brooks Fuller: about, you know, being, you know, a functioning member of this thing we call democracy. And so

Peter Pappas: Mm.

Brooks Fuller: if that sounds interesting to you, if you want to, you know, go to those meetings and attend. on our behalf and tells us what what goes on there. and that this you know sounds like reconnaissance. These are these are public meetings, but attend these county campus meetings and tell us like, yeah, were there any issues? Were there people who you know maybe got locked out of the process? Were there voter ID issues that have been plaguing the

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm, huh.

Brooks Fuller: counties? It's a great opportunity to do that and volunteer. And so you can go to ccnc.me slash elections hub and find a ton of resources there about volunteering and getting involved. In watching elections run. Like you said, Peter, and that's that is one of the ways to dispel the myth that there's this widespread shenanigans going on in elections. It's you'll

Peter Pappas: Right. Yeah.

Brooks Fuller: get to see everything that these like stalwart public servants are doing.

Peter Pappas: Yeah.

Brooks Fuller: and the way they work with their communities also to to to hold everybody accountable

Peter Pappas: Right. Well,

Brooks Fuller: and make sure the process runs.

Peter Pappas: I did leave off one part of that statement, which was I can't vouch for Arizona or California, but I will vouch for North Carolina. You know what I mean? I it's like

Brooks Fuller: I'm not asking you. I'm not asking you to.

Peter Pappas: when people bring that up, I'm like, look, we are not them. We are good here, security wise. You know, we might have disagreements over the level of licking a ballot or licking the envelope or

Brooks Fuller: Ha ha.

Peter Pappas: you know, you know, whatever it is, or there was something that went around. I tried to the disinformation about It was an anonymous post. I just attended precinct training and my friend told me, you know, don't let them write on your ballot. So

Brooks Fuller: Mm.

Peter Pappas: I immediately contact Board of Elections, I show it to them, we make some videos here and we talk about it on the show. We try to get those reels out. Like, look, that's BS. Don't don't fall for that. That's they can write on your ballot in certain

Brooks Fuller: Yep. Yeah.

Peter Pappas: places. So anyway.

Brooks Fuller: Pierre, there's been there's been people doing that, sending around a post just like that since twenty twenty. So that it

Peter Pappas: Hell, this chain letters. Remember chain letters in the eighties and seventies? We're old enough. We those

Brooks Fuller: I do remember.

Peter Pappas: if you don't forward this to five people, bad luck falls upon your house or some BS. And it is spooky season, so people would buy into that. well, so well, Brooks, I do appreciate you coming on for Common Cause North Carolina. so if you vote absentee, please seal both ballots or both envelopes. follow the instructions. And if you get a notice, please act on it the same day. Just just we want your vote. So please, please, please follow the instructions and go vote. Brooks, thank you for joining me, sir.

Brooks Fuller: Thank you, Peter.