Why are websites like voter's records legal?

Question

How is it possible that https://voterrecords.com/ can operate without any problems?

They reveal your personal information without your direct consent. Basically, you can find the address of anyone who you want. Well, if you are registered to vote, which most of people are. How can this be allowed to be publicly available? What law does allow this site to show your name and address and many other things (party affiliation)?

Note: Can I sue the government or the website if someone who broke into my house or caused damage to my property as part of their crime if they used this portal to obtain my personal information?

Answer 1

There is a law requiring it (in Washington). Per RCW 29a.08.720, "current lists of registered voters are public records and must be made available for public inspection and copying under such reasonable rules and regulations as the county auditor or secretary of state may prescribe". As in all states, there is a law that requires disclosure of "public records", which is in this case limited to first and last name, age, county and zip code (there is no official party affiliation, and phone number or street address are excluded from public records). Ohio law is a bit different, so you can get a street address (in the Ohio section, it also includes putative data from other internet sources, which are often just guesses – it thinks my son lived in Texas). It does not include California, because voter lists are not mandatorily-disclosed public records in California. Under half of the states' records are available.

Answer 2

Everything which is not forbidden is allowed

What law does allow this site to show your name and address and many other things.

A basic principle of law is that people are free to do all kinds of things which are not explicitly prohibited, "Everything which is not forbidden is allowed". They don't need a law to be allowed to do that, the default condition in the absence of specific laws is that they are allowed to do it.

"They reveal your personal information without your direct consent." and they have the right to do so unless there is a specific law that prohibits revealing your personal information without your direct consent. Some jurisdictions do have such laws (e.g. the GDPR in EU is a widely discussed example), and some jurisdictions (e.g. much of US) do not.

Can I sue the government or the website if someone who broke into my house or caused damage to my property as part of their crime if they used this portal to obtain my personal information?

In general, no - if they had the right to publish your personal information, and they did not do it with a specific intent to aid a specific crime (which would make them accomplices) then they did nothing wrong, and are not liable for your losses. If they had some duty or responsibility to keep your information private, then there would be grounds for a tort suit for damage caused by their negligence, but if no such duty existed (in this particular case, they even had a duty to publish that information) that is not negligence.

Answer 3

Not least, for two reasons. First, the partisan parties have a right to inspect the list of electors. This IS their opportunity to search for children, dogs, non-citizens, felons, or whole graveyards full of people registering to vote. It is also their opportunity to look for people voting in two districts.

And those in one party talk as if this stuff happans rampantly under our noses, implying were denied that opportunity! No, they weren't. The time to challenge the elector list is before the election.

The second reason is so that partisans in a race or ballot proposition can prepare mailings or canvass. Note that in closed-primary states, e.g. Republicans need to know who is registered Republican so they don't waste stamps mailing to Democrats who can't vote their primary ticket.

This is the kind of thing you need for transparent and honest elections. You see the same thing in nonprofit organizatons who have member elections, the elector list must be given to anyone with a non-unreasonable use for it.

As for privacy, as they say, freedom isn't free.

"Oh really?" Said just about every Ukranian.