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Privacy The Internet Politics

Voted In America? VoteRef Probably Doxed You (404media.co) 41

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: If you voted in the U.S. presidential election yesterday in which Donald Trump won comfortably, or a previous election, a website powered by a right-wing group is probably doxing you. VoteRef makes it trivial for anyone to search the name, physical address, age, party affiliation, and whether someone voted that year for people living in most states instantly and for free. This can include ordinary citizens, celebrities, domestic abuse survivors, and many other people. Voting rolls are public records, and ways to more readily access them are not new. But during a time of intense division, political violence, or even the broader threat of data being used to dox or harass anyone, sites like VoteRef turn a vital part of the democratic process -- simply voting -- into a security and privacy threat. [...]

The Voter Reference Foundation, which runs VoteRef, is a right wing organization helmed by a former Trump campaign official, ProPublica previously reported. The goal for that organization was to find irregularities in the number of voters and the number of ballots cast, but state election officials said their findings were "fundamentally incorrect," ProPublica added. In an interview with NPR, the ProPublica reporter said that the Voter Reference Foundation insinuated (falsely) that the 2020 election of Joe Biden was fraudulent in some way. 404 Media has found people on social media using VoteRef's data to spread voting conspiracies too. VoteRef has steadily been adding more states' records to the VoteRef website. At the time of writing, it has records for all states that legally allow publication. Some exceptions include California, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. ProPublica reported that VoteRef removed the Pennsylvania data after being contacted by an attorney for Pennsylvania's Department of State.
"Digitizing and aggregating data meaningfully changes the privacy context and the risks to people. Your municipal government storing your marriage certificate and voter information in some basement office filing cabinet is not even remotely the same as a private company digitizing all the data, labeling it, piling it all together, making it searchable," said Justin Sherman, a Duke professor who studies data brokers.

"Policymakers need to get with the times and recognize that data brokers digitizing, aggregating, and selling data based on public records -- which are usually considered 'publicly available information' and exempted from privacy laws -- has fueled decades of stalking and gendered violence, harassment, doxing, and even murder," Sherman said. "Protecting citizens of all political stripes, targets and survivors of gendered violence, public servants who are targets for doxing and death threats, military service members, and everyone in between depends on reframing how we think about public records privacy and the mass aggregation and sale of our data."

Voted In America? VoteRef Probably Doxed You

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  • Ah, there lies the rub. Privacy protection from aggregating in the past was provided by the volume of data and the cost. Now it is less expensive. I favor a constitutional amendment to protect against it. Especially with respect to advertising, politics, and medical.
    • Voter registration is a State issue regulated by law. Why would a constitutional amendment be useful?
      • by msk ( 6205 )

        Voter registration is a State issue regulated by law. Why would a constitutional amendment be useful?

        An amendment could change that.

        Unfortunately, Congress has little will to act to protect the people most vulnerable, so enabling legislation is likely to be weak, or slanted to favor the oligarchs.

    • by mysidia ( 191772 )

      hm.. My thinking is "aggregating" data offline in reasonable amounts should be fine.

      However your voter registration details ought not be public. Public records should be information about government operations NOT citizens' personal details.

      In addition public records should NOT mean that private corporations are allowed to conduct mass aggregation. I will give an example: land ownership records. They are and should be public records, but retrieving and saving copies of the records en mass for p

      • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        hm.. My thinking is "aggregating" data offline in reasonable amounts should be fine.

        However your voter registration details ought not be public. Public records should be information about government operations NOT citizens' personal details.

        I'd like to see the same thinking applied to all records about an individual, including personal addresses used for registering a business or nonprofit, DBAs, etc. The government should have them, but they should not be considered public records that can be obtained except in conjunction with a court order, because the alternative is just inviting harassment.

        Speaking of which,

        • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

          Speaking of which,

          Sorry, didn't finish that. Speaking of which, I wonder if any of these organizations have any "public records" that might be interesting to the public.

    • Constitutional amendments to create laws that can be handled individually by states (or even at the federal level) is always a bad idea.
  • Most states have privacy protections for certain crime victims and certain other high-risk individuals such as judges and police officers. https://www.eac.gov/election-o... [eac.gov] has details.

  • by Kwelstr ( 114389 ) on Thursday November 07, 2024 @07:26PM (#64929275)
    I tried to read their terms of service but to do so I get a prompt to agree to the terms of service. I can't read them if I don't agree first \_()_/
    • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

      I tried to read their terms of service but to do so I get a prompt to agree to the terms of service. I can't read them if I don't agree first \_()_/

      Pretty sure that renders any agreement inherently null and void. Personally, I'd create a screen recording of that fact, followed by me clicking it, and then try to find as many creative ways to violate it as I could, just for the entertainment value of seeing their lawyers' faces when I sent them that video in response to any complaints, but that's just me. :-D

      • Pretty sure that renders any agreement inherently null and void. Personally, I'd create a screen recording of that fact, followed by me clicking it, and then try to find as many creative ways to violate it as I could, just for the entertainment value of seeing their lawyers' faces when I sent them that video in response to any complaints, but that's just me. :-D

        Just wondering... Are you employed, like with a job?
  • by Anonymous Coward

    Does anyone know why VoteRef doxxed me 107 times? Do they perform a separate doxing operation for each vote I cast this year?

  • I guess they really did get thrown for a loop and took a while to regroup and put out nonsense claptrap. But they *are* rusty after four years of the glorious bolivarian revolution having lulled them into complacency.

    Ordinarily, back in the good old days, a nugget like

    Voting rolls are public records, and ways to more readily access them are not new

    would be below the fold, not in the first paragraph.

    • "...digitizing, aggregating, and selling data based on public records -- which are usually considered 'publicly available information' and exempted from privacy laws -- has fueled decades of stalking and gendered violence, harassment, doxing, and even murder,"

      He says that like it's a bad thing! -RightwingNutjob

      • You know you can look up anyone in most places in this thing called the property tax listing, the phone book, the PTA directory, and probably a half dozen other things I can't think of at the moment?

        Fuck. My town will post your name and address on the town website if you're late on paying your taxes. As they are legally required to do if they seize your property for nonpayment of taxes.

        You know whose fault it is if a maniac finds out where you lives and tries to kill you? His.

        You might be a close second if

        • by gweihir ( 88907 )

          Sooo, you want to make it easy for the maniac because it is his fault anyways? Are you serious? Do you also think stakers should have it easy? Or identity-thieves?

          • I think treating people's names and addresses as state secrets causes a whole lot of problems, specifically. And I think conditioning the behavior of free people on the misbehavior of a small number of degenerates is poor statecraft, in general.

  • by russotto ( 537200 ) on Thursday November 07, 2024 @07:55PM (#64929311) Journal

    This site doesn't have me, but if it did, so what? If you've made any political contributions, you can look that up at various sites, but since they're either left-wing or apparently bipartisan (OpenSecrets), nobody bats an eye.

    If they somehow linked my pseudonymous slashdot handle with my name, THAT would be doxing. (Except my slashdot handle isn't pseudonymous anyway)

    • This site doesn't have me, but if it did, so what? If you've made any political contributions, you can look that up at various sites, but since they're either left-wing or apparently bipartisan (OpenSecrets), nobody bats an eye.

      If they somehow linked my pseudonymous slashdot handle with my name, THAT would be doxing. (Except my slashdot handle isn't pseudonymous anyway)

      Suppose I didn't vote, but VoteRef shows that I did. That indicates voting fraud, someone entered an absentee vote in my name.

      Suppose the lot across from me is vacant, and VoteRef shows that several people registered and voted using that address.

      VoteRef is useful for identifying and combatting voter fraud. Lots and lots of theories on how vote fraud could occur, having the data open and available for everyone can lower the temperature, and reassure people that the voting process is secure.

  • That's OK (Score:1, Troll)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 )
    18m Americans couldn't vote because of long waits (7+ hours), especially in swing states. So all we need to do is keep that up and by 2028 Votref won't have any data.
    • We covered this the last time you posted it. Repeating it won't make it true when you try again on another article.

      Democrats have had roughly 65 million votes in the last several elections. Except for 2020 where they had 80 million. Then it dropped back to the normal 65 million in 2024.

      What is more likely... 15 *million* people somehow couldn't vote this time and 80 million is the new Democrat standard or something "odd" occurred in the one year where the numbers didn't match the pattern and the one year

  • by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Thursday November 07, 2024 @08:11PM (#64929335)

    It's perfectly fine if I get doxxed by a left wing group, I guess...

    • There are no left wing groups. That's a vast right wing conspiracy.

      There are only right wingers (all racist and uneducated and hate women) and completely normal people who want children mutilated, men in women's spaces and completely open borders to welcome in pre-documented migrant citizens.

  • by iAmWaySmarterThanYou ( 10095012 ) on Thursday November 07, 2024 @08:28PM (#64929373)

    Because left wing groups and companies fully respect your privacy.

    • by caseih ( 160668 )

      Sure but it's one party in particular that has been making a lot of noise about voter fraud. They are the ones who are doing a lot of data collection. Somewhat ironically, given the majority vote that went to trump there also must be a certain, tiny amount of voter fraud in his favor, statistically. As always it is never enough that would alter the outcome.

      As to your signature, no, she said simply that the country will survive him, which is correct, even in a worst case scenario. That linked article is d

    • "Both hyenas and gazelles have eyes. Therefore, pay no attention to the glowing orbs full of hate and hunger staring at you from the tall grass." -You, if you were capable of poetry.
  • Because if you did, they have you now.
  • Has anyone looked into this source?
  • The first step for almost any political campaign is to get a list of registered voters. How do you think they get your address for all those mailings? These are public records available to anyone. I know some states place restrictions on how the lists are used, usually limiting them to election related activities. But there is nothing sinister about someone putting together a master database of voters. There are plenty of organizations that not only have the list but have connected it to donations and resp

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