Security researchers say an estimated 35 million voter records from 19 U.S. states have been offered for sale on a dark web online forum.
The researchers said Monday the offering does not mean voter databases have been breached. The records could have been stolen from resellers who buy voter data from states for use by campaigns and get-out-the-vote efforts.
Policies vary by state on who can buy such records, which typically include phone numbers and addresses, sometimes voting histories. Commercial use and publication are generally prohibited.
Andrei Barysevich of Recorded Future says his company was among those that discovered the offerings.
Barysevich says state-backed hackers set on election meddling wouldn’t be selling such data — but rather looking to buy it.
Experts say the main risk is of identity theft.
Can we get an exclusive? If so, have the Justice Department buy them.
OK, we know that the GOP has substantively and strategically opened the door to hackers–whether domestic or foreign–to intervene in this election, as in the last. That is a fact. Should someone go through the door and produce a narrow and anomalous electoral victory for the GOP, nobody will be surprised. For the first time in living memory, we’ll be voting in an election where we cannot be certain of the integrity of the results. That is the state of our democracy. So what do we do? There are few choices, at this point. Our electeds tried to get funding for voting security but failed. That is no surprise. We have been outmaneuvered and outfought in congress for years. It will come down the Dem grassroots, again, to drive this issue. But what can we do?
Update: On Dems being outmaneuvered, it has happened again. Remember how Chuckie agreed to wave through another batch of extremist judicial appointments? To enable Democrats to campaign in the resulting recess? Any idiot could have told him (and some of us did) that he’d been played again by McConnell. Well, now this:
“…such records, which typically include phone numbers and addresses, sometimes voting histories.”
Probably best to clarify that what is meant by “voting history” here, is the record of which elections the voter cast a vote, not of how they voted. Obviously, the ballot is secret, so no record is possible of how you vote, but the fact of a registered voter having voted or failed to vote in any given election is a matter of at least semi-public record.
These records are how we know that voter ID fraud is not an issue. We can go back and look at the record of who voted in any given election and see that there is no pattern of dead people voting in numbers anywhere near enough to change an election result. The record of who voted and who didn’t has to remain at least semi-public because it is one of our main safeguards against fraudulent elections. It is far more powerful than making voters show ID, and makes that measure completely unnecessary as an actual legitimate safeguard. Voter ID is voter suppression, pure and simple.
Kobach did it; the guy should be in chains pounding on rocks.
The states are:
Georgia
Idaho
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Minnesota
Mississippi
Montana
New Mexico
Oregon
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming
[source: https://www.scmagazine.com/home/security-news/35-million-voter-records-from-19-states-found-for-sale-on-dark-web/]