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Republicans

RNC Outsourced Voter Database to India 57

Posted by michael from the on-the-cheap dept.
roj3 writes "PCWorld and other sources are covering the story of how the Republican Party outsourced work on their massive Voter Vault project to India. "When the Republican Party clinched close gubernatorial races in Mississippi and Kentucky in 2003, it relied heavily on its Voter Vault database to get people to the voting booths. Though party officials are tight-lipped about what's inside the Vault, they've acknowledged it contains records on an estimated 168 million voters. ... PC World has recently learned that the major development work on the Voter Vault was done in India." The work, done by Compulink Systems of Maharashtra, occurred during the same time that a Russian hacker (RyDen) compromised their site. Thankfully, they are pretty sure that no data was compromised. Who do you trust less with your personal information, marketers or politicians?"
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RNC Outsourced Voter Database to India More

RNC Outsourced Voter Database to India

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  • Trust? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Slime-dogg ( 120473 ) on Tuesday September 28, 2004 @01:06PM (#10375130) Journal

    Who in their right mind would trust a politician?

  • Why should the behavior of the Republicans surprise anyone? They do not care about the average American. Ditto for Democrats.

    [The following is worth repeating and is comments that I submitted in another thread of discussion.]

    Any high-tech job that can be outsourced will be outsourced. You will see a continuous shrinking of the high-tech labor force.

    Both political parties claim that free markets require the free exchange of goods and services (which includes labor) between the USA and other members o

    • Bill O'Reilly? Are you kidding me. I'd rather have Nader. Hell for that matter I'd rather have Jon Stewart.

      Simply writing in some idiot for president doesn't change a thing. Why not propose some solutions and run for office yourself?
    • This is a myth. While claims that the parties are identical abound they in fact are not. They alike in much the same way that humans are alike in having heart, lungs and spleens. To be alike they would need to have the same agendas and the same character of people in ultimate charge.

      Unlike the Republicans the Dems tend to be more emotionally driven. Prone to depression and caring about what people want of them. Republicans are more likely to stick with a set of values and habits not care what people said.
    • Ralph Nader had an interesting idea the other day. He said he wants to start taking out classified ads in Indian and Chinese newspapers advertising for experienced, talented management types to take CEO jobs from US corporations, so long as they're willing to work for 10% of what a CEO in the US makes (which I frankly wouldn't mind, myself!). Theory is, if it starts hitting the executive officers as well as the front-lines workers, then management might start changing their tune about outsourcing.
    • No kidding.

      The only time that most of our politicians have
      any "populist angst" is at election time. Most
      have been "bought-and-paid-for" by the special
      interest groups with the most cash to spend.

      Neither of the two main political parties will
      do anything to bring back more American jobs
      until the voters start kicking them out of
      office (and prosecuting them under RICO).

      Many voters will be disenfranchised by these
      same politicians and their eVoting machines.
      The numbers of voting errors, by bad software
      engineer

  • Public information (Score:3, Insightful)

    by crow ( 16139 ) on Tuesday September 28, 2004 @01:11PM (#10375189) Homepage Journal
    Remember, the parties don't have any special access to private information. I would expect that everything in this database was pulled from data in the public record. This is probably similar to databases used for gerrymandering. They have the voting results for every race by precinct. They have demographic information for every block from the census data. They have voter registration data (it's public record). They can correlate all of that to determine where they should go to get more voters that will likely support them.
    • They also have non-public information that they've developed on their own (donation records and stuff like that).
      • Donation records are public. I ran for a non-partisan office in my small town, and I had to file records for every donation (there were only two, including myself). You can look that up in the state records.

        Now they would have private information regarding who has volunteered on campaigns, as well as correlation between donations and specific fund-raising efforts.

        Besides that, I can't think of anything they would have that isn't public record. Like most of these big databases, the power comes from comb
    • Remember, the parties don't have any special access to private information. I would expect that everything in this database was pulled from data in the public record.

      Close. It is public information, plus whatever information you choose to provide, mostly having to do with your political preferences. It's really not that big a deal. It's not merely used for knowing where to concentrate efforts, but who to concentrate efforts on (which voters you should call before election day to remind them to come out
    • Yes, public records such as SSN's and birthdates. Hell, these used to be distributed on campaign database CD's, up until a few years ago (Cringely did a story on this last year). So they don't give those out anymore as much, but they still have and use those data-fields.

      I absolutely mind if their information travels farther than it ought to. I'd rather some Russki haxor not have those bits, thank you.
    • Just because something is public information here in the United States, where there are restrictions on the use of public information, doesn't mean I want that public information being sent to India- where there are no restrictions.

  • We need a FOIA for non-gov entities (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nharmon ( 97591 ) on Tuesday September 28, 2004 @01:15PM (#10375215)
    I think I should have a right to know what kind of data a private organization has about me.

    • It's already in the bill of rights (Fourth Amendment):

      "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, . . ."

      That first part tells it all. Privacy is a right, just like my guns. But since very few people understand the difference between rights and privileges, we the people get screwed time after time.

    • So copyright collected works of data about yourself. You know, like correlations between your name and your phone number, address, etc.

      And be sure to put a little addendum when you fill out forms:

      © N Harmon 2004. All rights reserved. Copying and duplication by any means without express permission is prohibited. This notice must be preserved on any and all copies.

      Maybe throw in a few ominous warnings about how the FBI and Interpol investigates and prosecutes copyright violations to the most seve

    • The UK privacy laws require your employer to give you copies of anything they store about you. I can't remember whether it covers 3rd-party entities you don't have a "business" relationship with.

      It's a good idea but here's the rub -- how do you identify them? Probably have to give them certain identifying information like name, address, phone number, ssn and who knows what else. What will they do with it? Probably store it in the DB and send it back to you.

      There was a company earlier this year that

  • Next time... (Score:4, Funny)

    by El ( 94934 ) on Tuesday September 28, 2004 @01:16PM (#10375227)
    I say we outsource the Republican National Committee's jobs to India!
    • I'm not sure that Indians are capable of the kind of evil the RNC comes up with. I've yet to meet an Indian that insane. Perhaps if we outsource the lobbyists, in a few years the knowledge transfer for evil will allow Indian political groups to destroy their country, that should solve the American outsourcing problem for the tech industry.

  • In other news... (Score:4, Funny)

    by christopherfinke ( 608750 ) <chris@efinke.com> on Tuesday September 28, 2004 @01:17PM (#10375237) Homepage Journal
    "Our main story tonight: technical work is being outsourced to India.

    In other new, the sky is blue and water is wet."
  • so?

    Iverson says the RNC hired a different Seattle company, Advanced Data Center Systems, to perform work on its Voter Vault.

    So they hired a Seattle firm that turned around and subcontracted its work to someone else. It's not government data, it's not classified, and the "leak" could've happened here. I don't see the relevance.

    --trb

  • What a misleading article (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DesScorp ( 410532 ) on Tuesday September 28, 2004 @01:22PM (#10375263) Journal

    The post makes it sound like the GOP went "Fuck Americans, we're going to build this thing with cheap labor! Ah ha ha ha!"

    RTFA....directly from the PC World piece...

    "Two years prior to the 2002 elections, the RNC hired Advanced Custom Software (ACS) of Seattle to build a Web-based database to help campaign workers target likely Republican voters. According to information posted on Elance.com, an online directory of outsourcing firms, ACS subcontracted development of the database to Compulink Systems of Maharashtra, India."

    It's a fair bet that when the GOP found out about the outsourcing (and the fact that ACS is basically nothing but a front company for Indian firms), THEY put a stop to it. Also from the article:

    "...all work done on Voter Vault since 2002 has occurred in the U.S."

    • Also from the article:

      According to the Center for Responsive Politics, which runs the Opensecrets.org Web site, during the 2004 election cycle the RNC paid ACS $1.2 million for software licenses and computer maintenance and slightly more than $1 million to ADCS for maintenance and "voter data."

      Seems that the RNC is still using the "front company for Indian firms" and that they don't appear to care if the work is still being outsourced. Don't jump to any conclusions, there is no evidence that any work is

      • "Washington State corporate records indicate that ADCS and ACS share the same address and were registered by the same agent, Steve I. Cummings."

        Same agent, same company, add a letter. Now it becomes a 'different company' but more importantly one 'based' in the US so they can dodge the question easier. Does work done in a vnc session off a server farm in Seattle qualify as 'done in the US'?
  • Who the hell are these people? Why does the repuglican party have information on well over 50% of the population? (50% are -not- registered republican voters)

    Perhaps there's a little "archival" information there on 10-20 million republicans who have passed away. Maybe that'll come in handy come November.

    Seriously, why so many?

    -dameron

    ------
    DailyHaiku.com [dailyhaiku.com], saying more in 17 syllables than Bill O'Reilly says all day.
  • First we'll outsource IT jobs.

    When people start to complain about that - we'll outsource the press, so that we don't actually get any information on what is happening anymore.

    When bloggers expose what is really going on and we lose trust in the system, we can outsource our government.

    After the government is outsourced and we all become citizens of whatever country has annexed the United States, we'll all be citizens of one country again.

    See...outsourcing solved in just a few easy steps.
  • I see the whole outsourcing issue from two angles:

    1) A truly free market is, in my oh so humble opinion, the ideal economic system. All else being equal, the work should go to they that can do it at the desired balance of cost and quality.

    2) All else is never equal; I don't know of a truly free market anywhere on the planet. There are other factors than cost and quality, such as the Wal-Mart problem, also known as "the race to the bottom." Also, unit cost at retail is quite different from the true cost, w

  • So what? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Quinn ( 4474 )
    Kerry's still going to lose.

    Instead of scraping the bottom of the barrel for muck now, you should have offered a decent presidential candidate last year. We all have the Democrats to blame for four more years of Bush.

    This reply is as relevant as the story to which it is attached.
  • To avoid risks like voter information going to India, more states should do as North Dakota has done. In North Dakota we have no voter registration, just show up with proof of residence for 30 days, or sign an statement to that effect when you arrive at the polling place.

    (Of course in ND, the poll workers know pretty much everyone... and any fraudulent change in the total number of votes in a precinct would get spotted before the day was out.)
  • Private information provided to corporations will sooner or later be accessed by the government, by law, by threat or by force. Private information collected by the government will not always be provided to corporations. Plus the government is accountable, at least in principle.
  • "Who do you trust less with your personal information, marketers or politicians?"

    What people should be asking is, why aren't we allowed a voice in both choices? The politicians seem quite happy to restrict a businesses use of information but never allow such restrictions on themselves.

    This should not be a surprise, Congress is immune to many laws the burden American businesses.

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