State senator among those affected by Georgia voter registration website glitch

ATLANTA — State officials have resolved an issue with a new voter registration cancellation website that temporarily exposed some personal voter information online.

However, they assure that bad actors could not have accessed any data without already having some of the voter’s personal information.

The website, which went live on Monday, allows voters to cancel their registration more securely.

State Sen. Gloria Butler, a Democrat from Stone Mountain, was among those whose information was exposed.

Butler was alerted to the issue by another lawmaker and found that by using her date of birth, her staff could access some of her personal information.

She said that she was concerned that a bad actor might have canceled her voter registration without her knowledge or consent.

“I thought it was very dangerous for all that information to come up. That’s a privacy issue,” Butler said. “That’s the first thing I thought of. Somebody else could’ve gone in and canceled me out.”

Gabe Sterling, Chief Operating Officer for the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office, acknowledged the error and stated that it had been accessed only a handful of times.

“We discovered it. We fixed it within an hour, and it was corrected so people’s identifying information was protected and there was never any release of data,” Sterling said.

Butler expressed satisfaction with the quick resolution.

“It was gratifying to know that it could get fixed all in one day,” Butler said.

Despite these assurances, state Democrats remain critical of the website, fearing that bad actors could potentially cancel voter registrations across the state.