Millions of Texas Voter Records Exposed Online (techcrunch.com)

A folder containing an estimated 14.8 million Texas voter records was left on an unsecured server without a password. Considering Texas has 19.3 million registered voters, this leak is very substantial. The file was discovered by a New Zealand-based data breach hunter who goes by the pseudonym Flash Gordon. TechCrunch reports: It's not clear who owned the server where the exposed file was found, but an analysis of the data reveals that it was likely originally compiled by Data Trust, a Republican-focused data analytics firm created by the GOP to provide campaigns with voter data. The file -- close to 16 gigabytes in size -- contained dozens of fields, including personal information like a voter's name, address, gender and several years' worth of voting history, including primaries and presidential elections. It's not known exactly when the data was compiled, but an analysis of the data suggests it was prepared in time for the 2016 presidential election. It's also not known if the file is a subset of the 198 million records leak last year -- or if it's a standalone data set.

Comments

Re:And?

[DaHat]

Depends on the state.

Ex: Here in Washington state, party affiliation is not part of the list (but history is)... while it is in Ohio affiliation is, but history is not: https://www6.sos.state.oh.us/o...

The primary purpose of these databases being available in some form is for political reasons.You as a candidate or just an interested party is going to need to know who to target with your door knocking & mailings.

See someone who is only an irregular voter? Might make a good target to encourage to vote for your person/issue.

See someone who is pretty regular? Their mind may already be made up.

Re:RMS is right

[bobbied]

...the best solution to this is not the collect the data in the first place. If you collect data it will get out.

Let me get this straight.. Are you saying that we shouldn't keep voter registration rolls or keep track of who voted in an election?

You do realize that such voter information is public record and subject to inspection by anybody who asks, right? This stuff is generally for sale if you have money to buy it.

It looks like this information was just an archive of voter rolls, crossed with voter records and other public information.