[cjoh]

While it's poor form to have a leaky database, this information is largely public and dirt cheap. You can buy a whole state's worth of data for a couple hundred bucks or a few cents a name. That includes whether or not you're registered to vote in any specific primary.

Doesn't look like who you voted for is disclosed -- I'm not sure that this data even exists. I suspect in most states, you go in to vote, your name is crossed off a list, you're assigned a hash, and that hash votes, and there's no database of "John Smith voted for Jane Doe."

[marklyon]

In my home state, your registration is printed in a poll book. It has a line number. As you come in to vote, you sign a log and the poll worker marks that you voted. The way they used to mark that you voted was by writing the sequential sign-in line number you signed in on. So, signature 73 would match up to James Smith.

We then implemented electronic voting machines with voter-verifiable paper tapes that allow to you see your votes and could, if absolutely necessary, be used to do a manual recount using paper records. These tapes were on the same type of paper used for other receipts, but were fed from one reel to another and stored in a locked box on the machine.

During the first election these machines were used, I went with another poll watcher to the precinct where a politician who was so set on how secure and wonderful the machines were and kept my own log - which of the five machines people used as they signed in.

So, at the end, I had my log (line 73 to machine 5, line 74 to machine 1, etc), the nice sequential sign-in sheet that matched easily to the easy-to-read printed poll book, and the paper tapes (required to be open to inspection).

We were able to match votes to people for all but seven of the votes (the last seven, actually, and we had a good idea who matched with which). The politician flipped his shit when I was able to demonstrably prove he voted for someone other than his party's candidate for governor.

The poll procedures were changed the next election cycle. The paper tapes were not allowed to be produced and the poll workers used a tick mark instead of a number in the poll books. The machines remain in use.

[deathhand]

>The politician flipped his shit when I was able to demonstrably prove he voted for someone other than his party's candidate for governor. The poll procedures were changed the next election cycle. The paper tapes were not allowed to be produced and the poll workers used a tick mark instead of a number in the poll books. The machines remain in use.

So you are the person that killed democracy? Given that voting is a "trade secret" and the code will never be inspected do you think the abolishment of a paper trail is a good idea?

[rcxdude]

A paper trail without voter secrecy is possibly worse than no paper trail. It's not hard to design a system with both (shuffling the ballots is usually a good measure).

[golergka]

> I suspect in most states, you go in to vote, your name is crossed off a list, you're assigned a hash

I don't know about US, but I once knew a programmer who worked on russian voting system.

I honestly don't think that he was qualified enough to know what "hash" is.

[pavel_lishin]

Given that it's a Russian voting system, I'm not sure that this is unintentional.

[golergka]

Stupidity, not malice.

In my observer experience, the higher the official, the less interested he was in falsifications; it was the lowest ranks that wanted to prove that their areas are loyal with any means necessary, while the higher-ups wanted to avoid the embarrassment and didn't worry much about the outcome, since population's loyalty is pretty sincere, thanks to the propaganda machine.

[hackuser]

> since population's loyalty is pretty sincere, thanks to the propaganda machine

Or is that we believe the population is loyal, because of the propaganda machine's affect on us?

[golergka]

Take my word for it, the propaganda machine lies about a lot of things, but unfortunately, it isn't one of them.

"Evil government oppressing discontent population" is a nice trope, but the reality is more grim.

[hackuser]

> Take my word for it

I don't think I will in this case. How do you know? I have yet to see any reliable data supporting it, and many dictators have claimed overwhelming public support with polls and elections to match.

I'm not sure how anyone could reliably poll Russian citizens. Who would dare say something negative about Putin? How do you know you can trust the interviewer? How could you rely on anyone keeping your opinion secret from the intelligence services? How much risk are you willing to take for something as trivial as answering a survey? What polling service would dare publish a negative result for Putin?

[pavel_lishin]

> You can buy a whole state's worth of data for a couple hundred bucks or a few cents a name.

Where is this data sold?

[mikestew]

Secretary of State's office for a particular state. WA charges some trivial amount for the trouble.

There are companies that add a bit of value by collecting the data and spiffing up the formatting a bit, then burning it to a CD/DVD for you. When I ran for city council of Redmond, WA, I went 15 minutes down the road to a place in Bellevue and just picked up the CD. It gives name, address, and whether or not one voted in each of the last X elections. SELECT * FROM voters WHERE "voter voted in 50% of elections" to get bang for the walking-door-to-door buck, throw that into MapPoint (tells you how long ago it was), and print out the walking sheets.

[eli]

https://elections.nationbuilder.com

Among many others.

The data itself is mostly free public records, but it's worth paying to get all 50 states in one place

[dublinben]

The Secretary of State's Office in each state is usually responsible for maintaining and selling copies of this information.

[eternalban]

Doesn't DieBold determine who voted for whom? /s