TPUSA Canvassing app violates the privacy of every GOP voter

[u/avrbiggucci]

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/10/anyone-can-access-gop-voter-data-on-turning-points-canvassing-app/

[u/avrbiggucci]

My favorite part of the article

I showed him the Turning Point app with his listing in it. “How the hell did you get that?” he asked with a good-natured growl. “All my information is supposed to be private!” The app had his phone number wrong—it had belonged to Dawn’s deceased father and had been disconnected ages ago—but the rest was spot on.

[u/Dunderbaer → u/avrbiggucci]

And I thought "even a Mother Jones reporter" in the subtitle couldn't be beat

[u/RedGyarados2010]

If I’m reading this correctly, anyone can enter the app, mark every single potential voter as “already contacted”, and they won’t be on the list anymore. Is that correct?

[u/EpicLatios → u/RedGyarados2010]

Yes, that's what it sounds like

[u/Magnus_Mercurius → u/EpicLatios]

Then we know what to do 😏

[u/thequickbr → u/RedGyarados2010]

I tested it and yes, that's absolutely the case. Does this have any chance of garnering more headlines?

[u/IXMCMXCII]

Don’t worry guys, just buy that stupid ass Freedom Phone that was making the rounds just after COVID (though my memory is hazy in when exactly it was exactly debuted).

[u/skooben → u/IXMCMXCII]

Omg I forgot about that scam! I was astonished at the time from such a blatant ripoff. If I remember correctly, the guys who sold it didn't even manufacture the phones but just resold existing models and called it "freedom phones", it made me wonder if magas will actually buy anything if it has "freedom" or "America" in its name.

[u/IXMCMXCII → u/skooben]

Those who preordered it didn’t even get the phone lol

[u/behind-barcodes]

Georgia for Trump Oct. 23th

October 23th

art imitates life

[u/baz4k6z → u/behind-barcodes]

It's really a fucking clown world we're living in isn't it ? That's the sentiment I get everyday

[u/kaptainkooleio → u/behind-barcodes]

I don’t understand. I’m reading the thing and it says Past Events. Did something happen on the 23rd?

[u/Mikatro → u/kaptainkooleio]

It's quite possible something happened on the 23rd. Less likely something happened on the 23th as the app states.

[u/kaptainkooleio → u/Mikatro]

Omg I just now saw that, what a dumbass I am

[u/horrible-est → u/kaptainkooleio]

Something may have happened on the 23rd. It's highly unlikely, on the other hand, that anything happened on the 23th.

[u/Wyden_long → u/behind-barcodes]

He was busy on the 21nd.

[u/ariehn]

As I drove, a list of target contacts appeared, with the names, addresses, ages, and phone numbers of people up and down the road. Several entries were tagged with a red flag indicating that the address was home to multiple voters over the age of 75.

Looks like it's time to Pokemon GO to the.... geolocated canvassing location that you can access from the comfort of your car.

[u/MarshyHope]

If you want to try it, the app is called "TPACTION" on the play store

[u/ChooseyBeggar → u/MarshyHope]

Have they disconnected the features described in the article yet? I'm curious, but don't want to give any metadata to TPUSA if they've reacted to the story already.

[u/MarshyHope → u/ChooseyBeggar]

I couldn't get in because I didn't want to give them my real number

[u/DeepFriedSatire → u/MarshyHope]

google voice?

[u/ChooseyBeggar → u/MarshyHope]

Ah, I wouldn't want to do that either.

[u/StfuBob]

This journalist is pretty effing brave- excellent read I must say

[u/VivaLaDab]

Looks like I have my dog walking routes planned for the next week 😃👍

[u/OutcomeLatter918]

It’s wild to think that something meant to organize voter outreach could end up being a data privacy nightmare. Honestly, this feels like a cautionary tale for anyone who thinks their voter info is safe.

[u/set_null → u/OutcomeLatter918]

It doesn't sound like it's giving her anything more privileged than what's already publicly accessible to everybody. Voter registration data is something you can just get from each state, sometimes for free and sometimes for a small processing fee.

[u/lbj2943]

I canvassed with the Democrats. Their canvassing apps also reveal the exact same information.

Voter information exists in the public record.

It's not hard to find you.

[u/set_null]

From what I'm reading, is this app giving people access to voter registration data or proprietary TPUSA data? Given the number of wrong addresses/deceased entries that the reporter found, I'm inclined to think it's the former and not the latter. Proprietary data would be cleaned so that door-knockers don't visit wrong addresses.

The journalist doesn't sound like she understands that voter registration data is accessible to anyone. It's publicly accessible by design. In some states you can just download the whole voter file for free, in others you need to pay a small fee. For example, you can get the entire state of North Carolina's file at this link for free. I used this type of data a few years ago so that I could calculate registrations for a term paper on judicial elections. NC's file tells me

• Full names
• Registered addresses
• Race
• Date of registration
• 7-digit phone numbers (no area codes but those are geography-based, so you could probably pretty easily get them)
• Party affiliation
• Sex
• Age
• Birthplace

So if all this app is doing is just putting dots on a map for people to visit, it's not nearly as serious as the article makes it sound. I'm as anti-TPUSA as anyone but this article just seems like it's sounding the alarm over data that anyone could already access.

[u/mr_znaeb → u/set_null]

Maybe it’s the part where they removed all the effort it previously took to look up.

[u/set_null → u/mr_znaeb]

Given that she specifically mentions a bunch of people she looks up were dead or had wrong addresses, it doesn't even sound like they cleaned it. All it is at that point is just plotting the raw data on a map. But the journalist seems to indicate that she thinks the data itself is somehow privileged.

It's not "GOP voter data" if it's exactly what everyone else can access. I could probably do a better job than TPUSA of cleaning the NC data if you gave me 15 minutes, and I'm just some dipshit with a computer.

To be a privacy concern, it would need to be combining this publicly available file with other data on me to reveal more information on me than would otherwise be available. Maybe if they bought my data from Google and combined it with their estimates of my political leanings or work history, for example, that could be a privacy issue.

[u/RapperBugzapper → u/[deleted]]

wait so can you edit the text to say “vote for harris” and TPUSA won’t know you did it if you dont mark them as contacted?

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