Florida election officials continue push to protect voter registration information

Jacksonville, Fl. — In yet another example of the vulnerability of personal information in the cyber world, a research group found potentially every registered American voter's information was left unprotected by a Republican data firm.

Some of that information, mainly voter registration details, is available to anyone and is not hard for outside groups to obtain. Should you not want your voter registration information to be shared, too bad, there’s not much you can do about it.

Chris Chambless, the Clay County supervisor of elections and chair of the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections (FTASE), has twice pushed for legislation that would protect voter registration information from outside groups. Both efforts were strongly apposed by for profit and non-profit groups that rely on gathering data on voters around the country.

The first bill would have broadly protected Florida voters from having their personal information shared; that attempt never stood a chance with state lawmakers. A second push limited the scope of the bill to only protect the information of pre-registered voters, which includes teenagers who aren’t yet old enough to vote. That bill also failed.

“We literally have hundreds of individuals across the state, for no other reason than not wanting their information to be publicly available, remove themselves from the voting rolls,” Chambless told WOKV. “They’re willing to go to that extreme to ensure that their information is not public.”

Chambless says, if your name ends up on any list, it's probably there for life. The FTASE plans to once again submit a bill to the state legislature next year.