Talk a little bit about the fact that, that probate judges historically have been elected in partisan races, correct?

That's correct.

So for the listening audience, the job of a probate judge actually started out long ago as an ordinary, it was an administrative post, and in the '70s once the role transitioned into a judicial role, it never changed the manner of elections in the state constitution.

So about 20 years ago, there was a move afoot to actually make the office of probate judge nonpartisan.

Unfortunately at that time, the Council of Probate Court Judges wasn't all together in support of it, um, and it was actually Governor Roy Barnes at the time who was trying to help push that through.

But the council could never get on board with it, so now 20 years later, here we are again.

And the reason why we decided it was time, it's a, it's a multiplicity of reasons, but the main reasons is we're seeing the challenges that our judges experience in having to run in partisan elections.

Mm-hmm