71–80 of 101 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Canada, for most of the 20th century until maybe 15 years ago, your PII was in a big book that lived at everybody's house and the library unless you specifically opted out.
And?
The other concerning aspect of this leak is the fact that the list was shared with a group of separatists, and the data on the list is basically everything you need to fraudulently sign someone up for the separatist referendum petition. Some separatists are claiming that certain ridings have had 92.9% of eligible voters sign the petition which is highly dubious: https://x.com/RiseOfAlberta/status/2049668987307303389…
Isn't the worst case scenario here, "Alberta has to vote on whether to secede"?
The other concerning aspect of this leak is the fact that the list was shared with a group of separatists, and the data on the list is basically everything you need to fraudulently sign someone up for the separatist referendum petition. Some separatists are claiming that certain ridings have had 92.9% of eligible voters sign the petition which is highly dubious: https://x.com/RiseOfAlberta/status/2049668987307303389…
Isn't the worst case scenario here, "Alberta has to vote on whether to secede"?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't the worst case scenario here, "Alberta has to vote on whether to secede"?
The worst case is if that vote passes
https://policyoptions.irpp.org/2026/02/alberta-separation-il...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But there is no justification for providing voter roll data to the wide public in a way that is machine readable. Why not? It's considered public information, just like political donation records.
> Why not? Because I don't want it to be. Why so? > It's considered public information The question is why is it considered public information. > just like political donation records. In what way?
Good luck getting in the way of political advertising, which is speech and expression at the apogee of its protection.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pesky First Amendment.
Sending mail to or cold calling voters, okay, that should by all definitions be covered by the First Amendment. Verifying voter rolls, okay, reasonable. But there is no justification for providing voter roll data to the wide public in a way that is machine readable. Or to provide these data to third parties (including political parties, candidates or PACs). Candidates and parties can use USPS Bulk Mail, they do not n…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why not? Because I don't want it to be. Why so? > It's considered public information The question is why is it considered public information. > just like political donation records. In what way?
Election integrity requires as much of the mechanics of elections to be transparent to all observers, including politically-disfavord groups, as possible. If the voter rolls are state secrets, only available to approved insiders, how can you know they're not filled with regime sockpuppets?
Here in Germany, you can show up in person at the election office to check the voter rolls, although in practice you don't ever need to do so because registration of your residential address is mandatory and it automatically also updates voter rolls. Errors here are extremely, extremely rare as a result.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why not? Because I don't want it to be. Why so? > It's considered public information The question is why is it considered public information. > just like political donation records. In what way?
I don't want grocery store circulars on my front porch. They're trash, they're bad for the environment, an eyesore, literal physical spam. But our municipality can't ban them, because First Amendment jurisprudence says so. The circulars are speech and expression at their nadir of protection (commercial speech not of any public or artistic interest), and they're protected. Good luck getting in the way of political adv…
Again: what exactly requires candidates to know your name and address to send you propaganda via mail? There already exist bulk mail services that allow you to target specific areas, addresses and even limited demographics [1].
Respectfully to the American "this isn't that big a deal crowd": you're looking at it from the perspective that this is a commonplace occurrence in your country. IANAL but I have filed privacy complaints in the past at both the federal and provincial level. For the last 26 years in Canada it has been illegal for personal information to be bought and sold on a whim; the person to whom the information applies is consid…