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Comment by Teever | Hacker News Reader

It appears that they registered as a party to get access to the data and them disseminated it publicly through a vibecoded app.

While this data may generally be public in the US, it usually isn't in Canada, and there's an expectation that parties don't publish the data and it is seeded to detect that.

A bigger problem is that people in Canada sign up for this list with the expectation that this data will remain reasonably private so now with this leak you have people who were willing to share their personal information to participate in the democratic process now afraid that their domestic abusers will be able to find them.[0] That really sucks.

There's also the awkward aspect of this in that the Alberta separatists are seemingly backed by American interests.

[0] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/edmonton-city-counci...

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> and it is seeded to detect that.

Do you mean that there are "paper town"-like entries in the dataset to make it obvious when one has leaked?

Yes, Elections Alberta provided the list to the Republican Party of Alberta. Whenever they do this, they salt the list with fake names so that if it gets leaked, they can then determine which copy was leaked. That's how we know this republican group provided it to this "Centurion Group"

I mean, it's not really optional for Canadians _not_ to sign up for the list. It's the official list of electors. If you're a citizen, you're going to end up on the voter list one way or another.

It actually is optional. You should always be able to opt out of registering for it, and if you are registered and don't want to be, there's an official form that you can fill out to get removed. See my other comment [0] for a few more details.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48015977

I was under the impression that this was the optional list that you sign up for with the CRA when you file your taxes, is that not the case?

The data sharing between the CRA and Elections Canada is optional, but if you want to vote, you've got to be registered - whether via the CRA or otherwise.

> but if you want to vote, you've got to be registered - whether via the CRA or otherwise

Technically true, but you can register at the polling booth on the day of the election, and there's a checkbox that lets you opt out of saving your data in the database. [0]

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48015977

Being on the electors list is optional, is something you can opt-in to (and opt-out of), and is not required in order to vote in Alberta.

There are many reasons an individual may choose to not be on the list (eg. domestic abuse situations).

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