The article specifically mentions this:
> While the majority of states make their voter registration lists available as a matter of public record and do not restrict use, some states restrict use. For example, South Dakota requires the requestor of voter registration data to sign a statement …. In California, information on voter registration cards is considered confidential, and subject to many restrictions to access and use …. And in Hawaii, voter registration information may only be used for elections and by the government.
It is implied that the victims include voters from these three states (and explicitly stated that they include voters from California), so it is a genuine data breach in that sense.
> As far as I can tell, the only "breach" here is revealing what candidates or parties voters chose.
Also, as other commenters have mentioned, the list of fields at http://www.databreaches.net/wp-content/uploads/DataFields.jp... does include your party (which I think is information as public as the voting record anyway), but does not seem to include your specific vote.
> As far as I can tell, the only "breach" here is revealing what candidates or parties voters chose
Why put "breach" in double-quotes? That's a very serious privacy concern if voters did not want this information to be public.
I think that this is a very important point. It doesn't matter how important it is to you that my information is public; the seriousness of its exposure depends on how important it is to me. (I am using 'you' and 'me' here not to argue with you specifically—in fact I agree with you!—but rather as generic pronouns.)
I assure you there are already databases of every registered voter in America. You're not allowed to do certain things with some of the data, but its always been available.
That's an interesting and subtle point, to which I don't know how to respond fairly. My information on these laws comes solely from the article, which says:
> In California, information on voter registration cards is considered confidential, and subject to many restrictions to access and use ….
"[S]ubject to many restrictions" links to https://www.lavote.net/Documents/purchase-order-for-voter-el.... I suppose that you could argue that these restrictions do not prevent you (assuming you are a US person) from accessing the data, but I think that the data are far from being public, which is what I understood you to be saying.
edit: I pieced together information from other comments and noticed that who one voted for is not available, even through this breach. That's great. My comment here was addressing the breach as it was presented in this comment thread.
> revealing what candidates or parties voters chose
> This did not happen.
The list of fields at http://www.databreaches.net/wp-content/uploads/DataFields.jp... does include 'party', although I suppose that information is only as confidential as the voter registration anyway.
EDIT: The replies indicate that my last sentence was unclear. Contrary to what it seemed to say, it meant that, since the voter registration isn't confidential, neither is the party information (except that sometimes the voter registration is confidential, as discussed in the article and my 'uncle' comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10801570 )). Maybe I should have phrased it, equivalently but more clearly, as "that information is as public as the voter registration anyway".
The point of my comment was just that it is not true that "voters' parties weren't revealed", which I took to be part of dfc's comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10801543 ).
Campaigns will also use it to target their literature; you might send one mailer to the members of your own party ("X is a totally loyal party member, here's seven things he did to support our core party values!"), another mailer to the opposition party ("X is not a total baby eater, here's five ways he crossed party lines to support things you probably care about!"), and a spattering of other mailers to the third-parties to emphasize support for their particular interests.
The weirder thing to me is that these databases also include birthdays. You could send birthday cards to everyone.
The list of fields shown is not complete, as they clearly state. They may have a reason known only to them, don't ask me what it is, for holding back information on fields they did not show.
This is why Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales (and presumably other victims of stalking or DV) does not vote.
That said, both RNC and DNC databases track who you are likely to have voted for in each race, but that's just a guess. It's a secret ballot. Nobody knows who you voted for.
For a Get Out the Vote operation it's very valuable to know how consistently people have voted in the past. If you look like a supporter but you vote inconsistently, I might call and ask if you need a ride to the polls. If you already vote every time, I'll allocate resources elsewhere, or ask you to donate/volunteer.
.. thereby destroying the integrity of the secret ballot, enabling vote-selling, intimidation, etc.
Isn't this supposed to be anonymous? Is it just the affiliation declared when registering for voting, or the actual vote itself?