The Virginian-Pilot
©
RICHMOND
By a slim margin, a House of Delegates committee voted Friday to close off all public access to Virginians’ personal voting history.
If the 12-10 vote of the Privileges and Elections Committee is upheld by the full House and the Senate, no one will be able to find out who voted in any election.
Voter history lists, which are kept by the State Board of Elections, are now made available to elected officials, candidates and political parties, who use them for targeted campaign mailings.
In its original form, Sen. Janet Howell’s bill, SB624, would have widened access to the lists, allowing nonprofit organizations to obtain them as well. The bill was a response to a lawsuit brought by the Know Campaign, a group that attempted to disseminate Virginians’ voting history as part of a get-out-the-vote effort last fall.
The campaign was halted amid indications that the voter information might have been obtained illegally.
Faced with the choice of widening access to the lists or shutting them off entirely, the House panel came down on the side of protecting voters’ privacy.
“Confidentiality of voting is something they hold very dear,” said Del. Steven Landes, R-Augusta County.
The lists don’t disclose whom people voted for – just which elections they voted in.
Opponents argued that closing off the lists will raise the cost of campaigning, because candidates will no longer be able to tailor their mailing lists to the most likely voters.
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
Twitter
Google
Yahoo
Repitition
As I said in another post, the information on voting records is made public by district and voting place. In fact, it is in the newspapers and on TV during election tallying periods. This should be enough to indicate a candidate's status without targeting individual voters
Good
It's no ones business whether I voted in the last election or not. I am also pleased that it was Janet Howell's bill that was "shot down" pun intended.
I would prefer not having my voting record released to anyone.
But some people wouldn't mind.
So, I suggested to my delegate and senator that a list be available at the polls giving each voter the opportunity to indicate "YES" or "NO" as to whether they wanted their voting record released.
Of course, I never received a reply.
Thank you, Paula.
Thank you, Ralph.
Imagine that....
they'll have to campaign for every vote and therefore maybe get their message to all. What a bunch of lazy, crybabby, egotistical legislators we have in Virginia.
Am I naive? I thought all votes were important. This is just more reason why our election process needs to be reformed, one national primary instaed of drawn out for months, no campaigning or even registering or forming campaign staffs before the calendar year of an election, limiting campaigns contributions to only those who can vote (would leave out unions, PACS, corporations, foreign governments, etc), and requiring any candidate to resign any elected office before forming a campaign for a new one, and limiting total Federal elected position time to 12 years, including house, senate and president. ANd finally, banning the retired elected person to work for any corporation that has contracts with our government for 5 years, or from being appointed to any government position by any mayor, governor or legislator. Wouldn't that be fresh.