“Available Jones” Strikes Again: Utah Violating Law To Sell Your Voting Records, Put Seniors, Others At Risk

First, please read the source op-ed, it also includes a link the the voter list website:

Herbert Admin Sells ALL Utah voters’ personal information – Except the Governor’s

Governor Herbert (aka “Available Jones”) continues to prove himself a donor’s best friend. Since 2012, I’ve tracked Utah’s mishandling of voters’ personal information. They simply don’t care at all about your privacy (note: if you have personal security concerns, please see this post to secure your info) – either you cease voting or you comply with political cronies’ data mining demands. This year, we find ourselves with yet another version of release of your voter information on the internet:

In its biggest single, ongoing release of personal information, the Herbert administration sells the full name, home address, phone number, age, year of birth, political party affiliation, etc.of virtually every one of Utah’s roughly 1.5 million registered voters to anyone willing to pay $1,050 for it despite an apparent prohibition in Utah Code—63G-2-302(1)(l).

First, take a look at the linked code citation. It is prefaced with “The following records are private:”

(l)    a record that:
(i)    contains information about an individual;
(ii)    is voluntarily provided by the individual; and
(iii)    goes into an electronic database that:
(A)    is designated by and administered under the authority of the Chief Information Officer; and
(B)    acts as a repository of information about the individual that can be electronically retrieved and used to facilitate the individual’s online interaction with a state agency;

It appears that the voter list would qualify under this section. Evidently, when priority is placed on pleasing the political elite and donor class, laws shall be ignored. Fortunately, they have good cover as the media and both political parties are complicit in this (Herbert may be the head honcho but the political enablers abound).

This release version also indicates that Lt. Governor engaged in kabuki theater when he was ‘asking’ for the voter list to be secured in 2014. As the custodian of the list and in charge of sales thereof, there’s been nary a complaint from him. Cox could also be a total dupe since Gov. Herbert’s information is protected and not on the website but Lt. Gov. Cox’s information (along with his family’s) is on the site.

The implications are obvious, anyone who has a security concern has a gaping personal privacy leak greatly simplifying an attackers’ job of identifying their victim’s (and family’s) location etc. The list also provides a convenient means for scam artists to target the elderly as year of birth, age, and phone number are also on the database. Finally, for a local touch, LDS Church and other local Jewish and Christian church leadership listed on the database may want to up their security given the recent threats from Daesh/ISIS to target them (see this post and scroll down for intel source links).

EDIT: Edited for clarity (see strikeout and underline). The list is still from the 2014 version but was posted in a new, easier to search format.