GA Sec. of State’s office confirms tech error revealed private voter info online for 1 hour

ATLANTA — The Georgia Secretary of State’s Office launched a site for voters to cancel voter registrations more easily on Monday, but the launch wasn’t quite seamless.

Monday’s site launch had an hour where private information was accessible, according to officials, though it was fixed quickly.

The purpose of the voter site is to allow voters who want to opt out of voter registration or cancel their registration to have the same ease of access as the state’s Online Voter Registration tool.

According to the Sec. of State’s office, the cancellation process is also used to cancel the voter registrations of voters who died and are no longer able to vote.

“This is a convenient tool for any voter who wants to secure their voter registration by canceling their old one when they move out of state,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said in a statement on Monday. “It will also help keep Georgia’s voter registration database up-to-date without having to rely on postcards being sent and returned by an increasingly inefficient postal system.”

However, during Monday’s launch, a technical error revealed the personal identification information for voters needed to cancel registration after a software update caused a technical issue.

“During the first morning of the Voter Cancellation Request (VCR) portal our office took action to address a temporary URL routing error that in some instances allowed voters wishing to cancel their record to view their own driver’s license or SSN in a cancellation form after entering in their date of birth, name, county of residence, and taking a specific series of steps,” according to Mike Hassinger, the Sec. of State’s Office’s Elections Information Officer.

Hassinger said the URL routing error may have been due to a software update and that the office had the issue fixed quickly.

“This URL routing error is believed to be the result of a scheduled software update and was quickly corrected. The error was detected and fixed within an hour,” Hassinger said.