Voted In America? VoteRef Probably Doxed You (404media.co) 73
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."
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."
aggregating data (Score:1)
Re: aggregating data (Score:3, Insightful)
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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.
Re: aggregating data (Score:1)
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"Motor voter" [wikipedia.org] is a federal law, passed under Congress's constitutional authority to regulate the elections of Senators and Representatives. Six states are exempt, but the other 44 must comply with it.
When you say "some States went full-in for 'motor voter' registrations", what do you mean?
Re: aggregating data (Score:1)
Re:aggregating data (Score:4, Insightful)
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 properties that you are not connected with and have no specific business with ought to be illegal.
Finally; the largest issue is placing it online on servers connected to the internet in a manner that makes personally-identifiable info on people searchable by others Or opens the possibility to exposure in a data breach.
I would honestly say this concept of a "data broker" who collects and resells information to members of the public indiscriminately or for trivial purposes such as marketing should be Illegal.
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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,
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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.
Re: aggregating data (Score:3)
If this were actually a big deal, there's a simple solution: form your entity in Delaware. Ain't nobody idly paying the fees those guys demand for basic information.
Re: aggregating data (Score:1)
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"We found this case from 16th century England that establishes privacy is not protected. Also constitutional amendments don't fit with what the founding fathers wanted or they would have just written it that way to begin with so they don't count"
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Yup. "This scrap of translated cuneiform from 2,000 BC trumps the language in the Bill of Rights, according to our experts at the Project 2025 cult compound, therefore we rule against the latter. And we don't like it anyway, so there."
Trumps the language, indeed :)
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Zombie voters (Score:2)
Crime victims can ask for privacy in most states (Score:1)
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.
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Terms of service (Score:5, Funny)
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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
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Just wondering... Are you employed, like with a job?
Confused (Score:2, Funny)
Does anyone know why VoteRef doxxed me 107 times? Do they perform a separate doxing operation for each vote I cast this year?
Re: Confused (Score:2)
like it's a bad thing (Score:2)
"...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
Re: like it's a bad thing (Score:1)
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
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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?
Re: like it's a bad thing (Score:1)
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.
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Ok, I follow the reasoning at least partially, even if I do not agree to it. The problem with it is that a) the number of degenerates is not that small and b) doing something about the problem _before_ they harm somebody requires either making it hard for them by making obtaining the information hard or basically a totalitarian surveillance society.
Incidentally, names and addresses are protected in Europe under the GDPR and, so far I fail to see "a whole lot of problems". What specific problems do you see r
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Right, handgun owners are the very first victims. Right-wingers are always aggrieved.
How dare anyone know who the gun owners are, how else can you mass-murder children in private?
Re: Seems okay when left-leaning newspapers do it? (Score:2)
I need to check my calendar, and dig through my emails, but I'm pretty sure I didn't go on any murderous rampages today, yesterday, or last week.
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handgun permit holders
What kind of fascist shithole do you live in that insists you obtain a permit to exercise a constitutional right?
Re: Seems okay when left-leaning newspapers do it? (Score:2)
The people's republic of Massachusetts, California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois....
Even Pennsylvania and Texas will make you get a permit before you get to carry in public.
Back before Bruen, I had a "target shooting only" restriction on my Massachusetts LTC. And as we all know, it is only those words printed on my license that prevented me from going on those rampages you read so much about. After Bruen, my renewed license carries no such restrictions. I guess we're all a little bit less safe now that th
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Personally, I'd define a shithole as "somewhere so lawless that you have to pack heat everywhere you go in order to feel safe". The state I live in (Florida) passed a constitutional carry law not too long ago and you know what? I still keep my gun, properly secured, at home.
To be completely honest, the 2A is a little ambiguous on whether it actually grants the right to walk around town with an arsenal in your trousers.
That's not what doxing means (Score:4, Insightful)
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)
It's for better security (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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In some nice world that we don't live in, that could be true. In the world we actually live in, that is not at all what is happening. They are not some nice website that is out there to help reassure people the voting process is secure. They have made insinuations that the 2020 election was stolen (it wasn't). They have taken normal discrepancies and used them to imply fraud is occurring (it isn't on any meaningful level). They have raised the temperature not lowered it, and that is their goal.
That's OK (Score:1, Troll)
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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
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Aside from the fact that some MAGA idiot was across the street filming the polling place for his dumb TikTok channel (yea, I saw the video of myself, no, I'm not going to link to it), my partner and I had no difficulties with early voting in Florida.
Granted, it didn't result in the outcome we'd hoped for, but living in Florida we're used to it by now.
Oh no, doxxed by a right wing group! (Score:3, Insightful)
It's perfectly fine if I get doxxed by a left wing group, I guess...
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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.
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completely normal people who want children mutilated
Soooo, Jews?
men in women's spaces
You mean like this [npr.org]? Or this [nbcsandiego.com]?
and completely open borders to welcome in pre-documented migrant citizens.
Yup. Don't want to stifle the economic engine [texastribune.org].
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men in women's spaces
You mean like this [npr.org]? Or this [nbcsandiego.com]?
I was kinda hoping one of those was more along the lines of this [alamy.com] or this [sitcomsonline.com].
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Those people at the women's job faire all checked the trans box which makes them women. Real women. That's how they self identified therefore it is what they are.
How dare you dead-gender them and call them men based solely on their external appearance! Your misogyny is disgusting!
Gender is a social construct.
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Point is, for this discussion their political alignment is immeterial. I don't particularly like getting doxxed by either side - not by the left, and also not by the folks who were dumb enough to believe that migrants-are-eating-your-pets garbage.
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not by the folks who were dumb enough to believe that migrants-are-eating-your-pets garbage.
The right really needs to put out a handy-dandy guide out which clarifies which issues are just absurd outlandish statements to draw attention, and which issues are ones they actually plan to address.
Because I'm gonna be more than a little miffed if the upcoming Trump administration 2.0 goes after trans folks and drag queens, yet does nothing about the pet eating illegal aliens. If he doesn't take his campaign promises seriously, welp, there goes his chances at a 3rd term. /s (I shouldn't have to add the /
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It's perfectly fine if I get doxxed by a left wing group, I guess...
America doesn't have left wing groups.
Your politics are right wing, and extreme right wing.
If you actually had left wing representation, you might have a properly working healthcare system etc...
Glad to know only right wing groups collect data (Score:4, Funny)
Because left wing groups and companies fully respect your privacy.
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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
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I had a 6 month long real time conversation with a gf back in the day entirely in Haiku.
I'm sure you're a better poet, however. Because reasons. Good ones. Such as, you don't like me. You win!
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I'm not a poet. I just thought what I happened to write sounded pretty cool.
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Glad I read to the end of the thread before responding to that jackass. Of course, it might actually be funny if a bunch of us responded basically the same way you did. I have no doubt he'd be a one-man population explosion if his hand could get pregnant.
I hope you didn't look yourself up on them. (Score:3)
Oof, another 404media sensationalist story. (Score:2)
Fear Mongering BS (Score:2)
Um, why is this a surprise? (Score:3)
Traditionally, things like driver's license info and voter registration info is either just another public record which is accessible to everybody, or in some places it's sort of a quasi-public record.
In places like Florida, for instance, driver's license data is a public record anybody can get, which makes it easier for you to have your lawyer track somebody down and serve papers on them [if needed] after something like an accident. In California, driver's license data used to be a public record, but the laws were changed after a stalker used that data to track down a young actress and murder her; now you must make a special application [and pay a fee, IIRC] to get such records from the CA DMV. In other words, they're still sort of public records, but access is controlled enough that the state can be on the lookout for stalkers and such trying to use it, and the hurdles are high enough to discourage the non-serious from bothering.
Most places do not make voter data directly available to any clown who wants it, but all government agencies, political candidates, and political orgs can get it [so they can do their mass-mailings, get-out-the-vote activities, etc] as can academics, journalists, and even businesses [but I think these entities need to go through an application process in most areas]. The trick is, the politicians can ALWAYS be counted upon to act in their self-interest... so the laws governing this stuff always seem to have a particular loophole: no matter how restrictive initial access to these databases is, there's rarely any control on what an entity that obtains the data does with it - including a lack of restrictions on them forwarding it to other entities.
Justin Sherman has insight (Score:2)