Pennsylvania pulls plug on voter site after data leak

[OhioChick]

Source: ComputerWorld

Because the coming primary isn't fraught enough

March 19, 2008 (IDG News Service) With voting in Pennsylvania's presidential primary just a month away, the state was forced to pull the plug on a voter registration Web site Tuesday after it was found to be exposing sensitive data about voters in the state.

The problem lay in an online voter registration application form that was designed to simplify the task of registering to vote. State residents used it to enter their information on the Web site, which then generated a printable form that could be mailed to state election officials. Pennsylvania's Department of State disabled the registration form late Tuesday after being informed of the vulnerability by IDG News Service.

Because of a Web programming error, the Web site was allowing anyone on the Internet to view the forms, which contained data such as the voter's name, date of birth, driver's license number and political party affiliation. On some forms, the last four digits of Social Security numbers could also be seen.

"Upon learning of this situation, the Department of State acted immediately to disable the specific page," said Department of State Spokeswoman Leslie Amoros in an e-mail message.


Read more: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9069578&intsrc=hm_list

[frazzled]

1. Oh, that's interesting

Even as Obama is running ads explaining to people (Independents or Rs) how they need to change their registration to Democratic in order to participate in the PA primary, the state pulls the plug on website registration.

It helps to have the governor on your side.

[OhioChick]

2. First Thing That Came to My Mind

was Rendell.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

3. yeah cause Obama can only win with Rethuglican 1 time crossover voters

that Obama ad with him telling Rethugs to register as dems is pathetic

[OhioChick]

4. What about HRC?

Many voting for Clinton to boost GOP

For a party that loves to hate the Clintons, Republican voters have cast an awful lot of ballots lately for Senator Hillary Clinton: About 100,000 GOP loyalists voted for her in Ohio, 119,000 in Texas, and about 38,000 in Mississippi, exit polls show.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/03/17/many_voting_for_clinton_to_boost_gop/

[Lobster Martini]

5. Great. Decertify the electronic voting systems and make it harder to register.

"Three Pennsylvania counties, Lackawanna, Northampton and Wayne, must replace the voting system they were using, the AVS WINVote, because the Secretary recently decertified it for use in Pennsylvania after it was discovered the vendor had misrepresented the systems to testing authorities…The AVS WINVote was decertified after it was discovered that the system violated several provisions of the Pennsylvania Election Code." (http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2730&Itemid=113)

But remember, every vote counts. Even if the electronic voting systems don't meet the state's standards, the vote count can't be verified and your personal information will be on the Web site. Well done, PA!

[merwin]

6. It's a BAD thing that they are decertifying a flawed electronic voting system?

Seems like a good thing to me, as long as they replace it with a proper one before election time comes.

[stillcool]

7. Sounds Ken Blackwell-esque..

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9069578&intsrc=hm_list

"There are so many alarming things about this," said Kim Alexander, president of California Voter Foundation, which has studied voter privacy across the U.S. "It just seems to be a case where you have government agencies using sophisticated technology in thoughtless ways."

With an important presidential primary set to occur in Pennsylvania on April 22, it's particularly worrisome that this data could have been accessed by anyone, she added. "All kinds of dirty tricks could be played," she said. "In heated campaigns, we've seen cases where someone will call a whole bunch of voters and tell them that the election date has been changed."

While states may make these databases available for political purposes, their use is strictly controlled and sensitive information like driver's license numbers is removed. With the data on the Web, this is no longer possible, Alexander said. "You lose all those protections when you have this data available on the Internet."
"It's unprecedented that this information would be so freely available on the Internet," she added.

Ironically, with many voters already avoiding voter registration because of privacy concerns, Pennsylvania's efforts to help voters may end up backfiring, said Beth Givens, director at the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. "When word gets out, it will be one of those things that will deter people from registering to vote," she said.