What the hell?! Entire voter file stolen from Davidson County, and no immediate plans to prevent fraud??
Submitted by Eleanor A on Mon, 12/31/2007 - 00:25.
Southern Beale's actually got an excellent breakdown of this linked below, but I can still scarcely believe this: Someone steals computers with the entire county voter file out of Metro Davidson's Election Commission - over the Christmas holiday, when there's not much media coverage, at the beginning of what's sure to be a contentious Presidential election year, in the most reliably Democratic county in the state - and there's no official response?
Ray Barrett is usually a standup guy, but there's no "Gosh, I'm committed to make sure that neither political party uses this list for monkeyshines?" Here's hoping this isn't the last we're going to hear out of this story.
Combined with the documented flaws in the ESS systems used by Davidson County, I'd say your vote is now worth less than the $1.29 you pay for a cheeseburger you get at McDonald's - and you actually get a receipt for that, unlike the [zero] you get when you vote on Election Day.
Saturday, 12/29/07
Computer heist puts voter IDs in danger
Davidson will issue identity theft alert to all county voters
By JENNIFER BROOKS
and COLBY SLEDGE
Staff Writers
The names, addresses and complete Social Security numbers of more than 337,000 Davidson County voters may be in the hands of thieves, Metro election officials said Friday.
The information could be used by identity thieves. County election officials are warning the public to monitor their credit accounts for any suspicious activity.
Election officials had said earlier in the week that the computers stolen over the Christmas holiday from the Metro Election Commission offices at Howard School Building, 800 Second Ave. S., contained voters' partial Social Security numbers, along with other personal information.
"As we looked deeper … we now know that full Social Security numbers were included on the voter files contained on one or more of the stolen computers," county Election Administrator Ray Barrett said.
Initially, Metro thought the information on the missing computers was the same as that found in the databases that political candidates can purchase from the county to create mailing lists to potential voters. "We now know that was incorrect," Barrett said.
The thieves also apparently broke into neighboring Metro offices in the Howard building, although a full tally of the damage was not yet available Friday afternoon.
So basically these laptops were sitting in plain sight, practically with neon "STEAL ME" tags attached...I'm happy Metro is taking some steps to improve security in the future, but various officials keep saying how glad they are for the opportunity to make these improvements. Excuse me, but it's not as though all 300,000+ folks in the Davidson voter file can just run right out and apply for new SSNs.
Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 01/06/2008 - 12:33.
Someone should be prosecuted for breach of public trust. These databases should have been secured in a vault! It's bad enough that we get the phone call onslaught during political season from machines and have no way of getting off the call list, but now our SS#'s are not protected.
Submitted by Eleanor A on Tue, 01/08/2008 - 10:51.
Well, the issue is that anyone can go down to the Election Commission and pick up a copy of the voter file, complete with voter history, for about $40. However, the copy you can buy doesn't have complete SSN numbers, so you couldn't, say, send in fake voters with falsified ID documents...also, as those of us who routinely read Black Box Voting know, this makes it a lot easier to overwrite, say, an Excel data file in the ESSVotronic system with manipulated data without being detected.
Submitted by Eleanor A on Fri, 01/18/2008 - 19:24.
So, the laptops have turned up...but I have to figure, given how easy it was for a random homeless guy to have got his hands on them, that Metro still has some ducks to line up on this issue...
most reliably Democratic county in the state
Geez, why do you think it happened there?
Nothing to see here, move along.
Still outraged. New article today with more information.
Link...
So basically these laptops were sitting in plain sight, practically with neon "STEAL ME" tags attached...I'm happy Metro is taking some steps to improve security in the future, but various officials keep saying how glad they are for the opportunity to make these improvements. Excuse me, but it's not as though all 300,000+ folks in the Davidson voter file can just run right out and apply for new SSNs.
Someone should be prosecuted for breach of public trust. These databases should have been secured in a vault! It's bad enough that we get the phone call onslaught during political season from machines and have no way of getting off the call list, but now our SS#'s are not protected.
This reaks of Watergate type tactics.
Well, the issue is that anyone can go down to the Election Commission and pick up a copy of the voter file, complete with voter history, for about $40. However, the copy you can buy doesn't have complete SSN numbers, so you couldn't, say, send in fake voters with falsified ID documents...also, as those of us who routinely read Black Box Voting know, this makes it a lot easier to overwrite, say, an Excel data file in the ESSVotronic system with manipulated data without being detected.
So, the laptops have turned up...but I have to figure, given how easy it was for a random homeless guy to have got his hands on them, that Metro still has some ducks to line up on this issue...