Iowa GOP website exposes voter records for 2 million people
The personal info includes names, phone numbers and voting records.
The Iowa caucuses may be over, the state's Republican party still has its hands full. Wall Street Journal reports that the website for the Republican Party of Iowa had a security flaw that exposed voter information for around 2 million people. Names, phone numbers, addresses, birth dates, party affiliations and voter records for registered Republicans, Democrats and Independents were all part of an unencrypted database left open on the site. Voter records don't list who someone voted for, only if they voted. However, the leaving personal details out for the taking is certainly troubling.
An Iowa caucus attendee discovered the security flaw while searching for locations to visit before telling WSJ about the issue. In response to the news outlet's query, the Iowa GOP pulled the database from its website. Voter records are usually available from the Secretary of State as public info for a fee of $1,500 to $1,800, but law requires the info they contain to only be used for political reasons. In this case, the person who found the database did so by looking at the source code for the caucus location directory. In other words, something anyone using a web browser can choose to do.