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Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster

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Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster

#81

Post by tptacek »

mschuster91 wrote: post #79
tptacek wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Good luck getting in the way of political advertising, which is speech and expression at the apogee of its protection. 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]. [1] https://www.usps.com/business/political-mail.htm

Campaign speech isn't simply the right to address whatever demographics your mail services happens to have decided matter (in the context of a campaign, that is itself a political decision, core protected activity). It's the right to organize around specific voters.

In local politics (which is where I engage mostly), these kinds of decisions get made on individual voter bases at times.

I want to be clear here that while I believe the principles I'm describing to be normatively good, I'm also being descriptive; the restrictions you'd advocate for would almost certainly be held unconstitutional.

Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster

#82

Post by gojomo »

mschuster91 wrote: post #78
gojomo wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> 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, extr…

Useful comparison, but to my point: is that sufficient to detect fake entries created by incumbent insiders?

Also: has that in-person mechanism ever been used by stalkers/abusers to find their hiding targets?

Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster

#83

Post by mschuster91 »

gojomo wrote: post #82
mschuster91 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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, extr…

Useful comparison, but to my point: is that sufficient to detect fake entries created by incumbent insiders? Also: has that in-person mechanism ever been used by stalkers/abusers to find their hiding targets?

> Useful comparison, but to my point: is that sufficient to detect fake entries created by incumbent insiders?

Scandals regarding voter roll fraud are extremely rare. I can only think of one scandal from 2014 where a farmer was alleged to have seasonal laborers register and vote for the party of his wife by mail [1]. In the end, the case against the farmer ended up being tossed on insufficient evidence.

> Also: has that in-person mechanism ever been used by stalkers/abusers to find their hiding targets?

If someone is in hiding and legally protected, it is not allowed to contest these entries [2] since the threshold is very high. For "normal" people, you have to bring clear evidence that fraud may have occurred.

[1] https://www.sueddeutsche.de/bayern/geiselhoering-wahlfaelsch...

[2] https://www.gesetze-bayern.de/Content/Document/BayVV_2021_I_...

Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster

#84

Post by Sprocklem »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #44
slopinthebag wrote: post #16

Other commentators are rightfully pointing out that this information is open public in other jurisdictions, and that Albertans' information is almost certainly already being shared and sold. I believe the reason why this has become such a large news story is the tension between Alberta (and the west) and the rest of Canada. Alberta has rising separatist sentiment, a premiere who is extremely popular in Alberta and ex…

> Other Canadians eat up negative Alberta news like nothing else, and the media will no doubt provide them with the type of news that they crave. The reality is more the complete opposite. People from not-Alberta care about their own provincial governments and issues and don't really think about Alberta at all. It's the media and government in Alberta that is encouraging this notion that "Alberta is under attack" fro…

This is my experience as well, as someone who grew up in Alberta and has spent a fair bit of time in other provinces. This narrative that the rest of Canada is anti-Alberta or anti-Quebec (or that the federal government is seeking to undermine those provinces) seems to be invented and pushed by those provinces' governments to drive votes and avoid culpability for their role in their province's problems. It does not seem to be reflective of the opinions of people (or governments) from other provinces.

Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster

#85

Post by pibaker »

uticus wrote: post #3

In terms of "safety" this leak is a drop in the bucket. The greater concern would be that election systems are involved. If election information is unintentionally readable, it is also therefore potentially alterable.

As far as I know Canada uses paper ballots and count the votes in front of witnesses at polling places. I doubt you can sabotage the system by just meddling electronic records.

Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster

#86

Post by snowwrestler »

mschuster91 wrote: post #58
tptacek wrote: post #54

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…

The public policy purpose is to allow independent verification of who voted, in furtherance of trust in elections. It is arguably one of the reasons voter fraud is extremely rare in U.S. elections. “Many eyes make bugs shallow,” to steal a phrase.

Unfortunately, a lot of people still believe in widespread voter fraud despite the obvious and well-documented rarity.

I would say something similar about the availability of voter files, though. A lot of people are horrified they are available despite the obvious and well-documented lack of evidence it causes any significant harm.

Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster

#87

Post by gucci-on-fleek »

LurkandComment wrote: post #20

If you'rea domestic violence survivor and your info was just leaked. There are a lot of Private Investigators who look for this information for exes etc.

I'm a poll worker at the Alberta elections, and this isn't quite as cataclysmic as it sounds. Even without this leak, there are tens of thousands of poll workers, and it's really easy to become a poll workers, so most people who need to keep their address a secret either use a post office box for their registration, or don't register to vote at all (since you can vote without registering in Canada [0]).

That being said, it's pretty easy to get registered accidentally (I believe that the tax agency and the driver's licence agency both register you unless you opt out [1]), so this is still fairly bad.

[0]: Well, technically you must register to vote in Canada, but you can always register at the ballot box, and there's a checkbox that lets you opt-out of saving your information in the database (meaning that you'd need to reregister every time you vote).

[1]: You can use a post office box on both your taxes and your driver's licence, so that's usually the best solution to avoid getting accidentally registered with your real address.

Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster

#88

Post by MichaelBurjack »

pessimizer wrote: post #67
adamiscool8 wrote: post #48

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.

> unless you specifically opted out. They don't give you that option when you vote.

Being on the electors list is optional, is something you can opt-in to (and opt-out of), and is not required in order to vote in Alberta.

Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster

#89

Post by MichaelBurjack »

ls612 wrote: post #80
dblohm7 wrote: post #42

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…

My understanding is that voter registration data is a matter of public record in most (all?) states so the idea that it wouldn’t be a matter of public record north of the border is itself odd to me.

Being on the electors list is optional, is something you can opt-in to (and opt-out of), and is not required in order to vote in Alberta.

There are many reasons an individual may choose to not be on the list (eg. domestic abuse situations).

Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster

#90

Post by gucci-on-fleek »

dblohm7 wrote: post #38
Teever wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It appears that they registered as a party to get access to the data and them disseminated it publicly through a vibecoded app. While this data may generally be public in the US, it usually isn't in Canada, and there's an expectation that parties don't publish the data and it is seeded to detect that. A bigger problem is that people in Canada sign up for this list with the expectation that this data will remain reaso…

I mean, it's not really optional for Canadians _not_ to sign up for the list. It's the official list of electors. If you're a citizen, you're going to end up on the voter list one way or another.

It actually is optional. You should always be able to opt out of registering for it, and if you are registered and don't want to be, there's an official form that you can fill out to get removed. See my other comment [0] for a few more details.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48015977

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