
Sacramento Bee Leaks 19.5M California Voter Records - pjl
https://gizmodo.com/sacramento-bee-leaked-19-5-million-california-voter-rec-1822835127
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djrogers
First question - why did the Bee have these records?

Second question - what is this spokesperson smoking?

 _" The spokesperson added: “We know that in databases apparently targeted, no
personally identifiable information, as defined by the State of California,
was involved.”"_

According to California Civil Code4 §1798.80 ­ 81 "Personal information" means
any information that identifies, relates to, describes or is capable of being
associated with a particular individual, including, but not limited to:

● name

● telephone number

● address

● signature

● passport number

● medical information

● social security number

● insurance policy number

● bank account number

● physical characteristics or description

● driver's license or state identification card number

● credit card number, debit card number, or any other financial information

● employment or employment history

● education

● health insurance information

So exactly what information was leaked?

 _" It contains the voter’s name, phone number, address, gender, date of
birth, political affiliation, among other election-related details."_

If that's not PII, I'm a butterfly.

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willow9886
Regarding Q1:

> Under state law, access to voter data is restricted; however, journalists,
> political campaigns, and academic researchers can acquire the data for
> certain purposes.

I guess the question is, what are the "certain purposes"?

~~~
jotux
Here's the law for CA:
[http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection...](http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=ELEC&sectionNum=2194).

"Shall be provided with respect to any voter, subject to the provisions of
Sections 2166, 2166.5, 2166.7, and 2188, to any candidate for federal, state,
or local office, to any committee for or against any initiative or referendum
measure for which legal publication is made, and to any person for election,
scholarly, _journalistic_ , or political purposes, or for governmental
purposes, as determined by the Secretary of State."

Looks like ultimately it's whatever the Secretary of State allows.

~~~
DrScump
The difference is that counties _charge everybody but party central
committees_ for voter data or extracts. (Or such was the case when I did voter
data wrangling 15 years ago).

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jerkstate
Looking forward to the actual votes leaking, that'll be a nice shit show.

~~~
danso
Unless the Bee has a backline to a shady person at the Secretary of State's
office, their dataset would not contain votes. I believe what they have is the
voter registration database. It varies by state, but at most, this would have
whether or not you voted for a given election/primary. This is how stories
about various persons' electoral participation are researched:

[http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/04/22/fact-
check-t...](http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/04/22/fact-check-trump-
skipped-three-presidential-primary-votes/)

[https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/24/politics/andrew-mccabe-
vote/i...](https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/24/politics/andrew-mccabe-
vote/index.html)

[https://www.buzzfeed.com/rosiegray/report-despite-
campaign-v...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/rosiegray/report-despite-campaign-
video-lena-dunham-didnt-vote)

