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.

Link... [1]

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.