Editorial: Voter privacy at grave risk

Thursday, Aug. 26, 2004 | 8:50 a.m.

Early voting began Aug. 21 -- and privacy ended that same day for the thousands of people participating. The Clark County Election Department decided this year, for the first time, to list all of the early voters on its Web site, by name and also by address, phone number, party affiliation and history of local voting.

Registrar Larry Lomax argues this is public information. But how is the public served by making it instantly available to everyone in the world? The answer is that it isn't. But it does benefit political consultants and parties, pollsters, candidates and marketers. And, unfortunately, it benefits stalkers, burglars and others with ill intent.

Lomax justifies the practice, saying it's cheaper for his staff to upload the information than to assemble it by hand for the all the marketers and political groups, even considering the fees they paid. In our view, however, he shouldn't be putting a price on the privacy of the voting public.

Before the Web site made accessing the information easy and untraceable, people who wanted information about a voter had to personally contact the Elections Department and, publicly, request the information. That time-consuming and revealing aspect served as a barrier against unscrupulous snoopers. When voters come to realize their personal information is now totally unprotected, they may decide their privacy is more important than their civic duty.

After high-profile cases nationally of stalkers tracing victims through state Departments of Motor Vehicles, Congress passed the Drivers' Privacy Protection Act. It bars state DMVs, and "any officer, employee, or contractor, thereof" from releasing any personal information found on a DMV record. It could be argued that those who registered to vote under the Motor/Voter program should be made exempt from Lomax's Web postings.

Ultimately, however, all voters should be protected. Lomax should immediately remove all of this information about voters from the Election Department's Web site.