Centralized Data

Centralized Voter Registration Database

Centralized databases containing personally identifiable information pose security and privacy risks. Protecting computerized sources of personal information maintained and managed by local and/or state government must be secure from abuse, misuse by insiders, and unauthorized access. It is imperative that sufficiently robust voter registration databases be fully financed, constructed, and effectively employed in a secure environment to protect against identity theft, unintentional or intentional corruption of data, unauthorized changes, and deletions.

Principles:

  • The privacy right of each voter record should be guaranteed by the state.
  • Use of cryptographic methods to insure that the information contained in centralized voter databases is protected from unauthorized access or manipulation must be a priority.
  • Plan and implement sufficient security protocols to protect information contained in centralized voter registration databases.
  • Backups, system logs, and routine audits of the system should be performed to monitor activity on centralized voter registration databases.
  • Prohibit the centralization of voter registration records until the security, reliability, and risks of identity theft, fraud, misuse, and abuse are reviewed and the resulting report's provided to the relevant House and Senate Committees and appropriate policy changes are made to guard against these threats.
  • Take measures such as mirror sites to guard against unanticipated system failures that would compromise the effectiveness of a centralized voter registration database during an election.
  • Policies should be in place to inform immediately local election administratorsand affected voters if the voter registration system is compromised so that they may take steps to guard against identity theft, voter fraud, or other threats to privacy.
  • Sufficient provisional ballots should be available to voters who are told that their name does not appear on the state centralized voter registration rolls.

Resources :