logoalt Hacker News

Teeveryesterday at 4:42 PM2 repliesview on HN

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...


Replies

pavel_lishinyesterday at 5:06 PM

> 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?

show 1 reply
dblohm7yesterday at 5:35 PM

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.

show 2 replies