Glitch exposing Georgia voter information has been fixed, election officials say

ATLANTA - Georgia election officials said that they have fixed a website glitch that led to a breach of sensitive voter information earlier this week.  

For a time on Monday, the glitch on the Secretary of State's newly launched Cancel My Registration page allowed people to access key data on voters if they put in some basic information.  

This data could then be used to cancel their registrations.  

One state senator discovered her information was exposed. Now, she is expressing concerns about the website's security. 

"Not just your driver's license but your last four digits of your Social [Security number], your date of birth" said State Sen. Gloria Butler, the Minority Leader. 

Butler said that sensitive data showed up after she entered her birthday.  

Gabe Sterling, the Secretary of State’s Chief Operating Officer, said there was a problem but insisted that the data wasn’t just out in the open. 

"When you launch new highly complicated systems with user interfaces, sometimes no matter how much you test, things don’t always go the way you plan," Sterling said. "You had to click on a thing and know other information to get to it, it’s not like there was a list of names sitting out in the wild." 

Sterling mentioned that his team fixed the issue within an hour. Despite this, Georgia Democrats worry that the glitch underscores broader concerns about how the new website could be abused. Georgia has eight million registered voters, 900,000 of whom are considered inactive. 

"It would be a problem if you pulled up my information and canceled me. Then I go to vote, and I’m not even registered," Butler noted. 

Sterling claimed that there are failsafes in place to prevent such incidents from happening, starting at the county election office. 

"If the cancelation goes through, a postcard is generated and sent to the individual, saying, 'Hey, did you mean to get this canceled?'" Sterling stated. 

Unfounded concerns of widespread voter fraud among Republicans have prompted a flood of voter challenges across the state. Sterling said this website is an effort to maintain confidence in the state’s electoral system. 

"This really helps with our counties, helps make sure we have enough equipment in the right places, and also takes another leg out of the stool for the election deniers to talk about all of these people who aren’t really here anymore on our voter rolls," Sterling added. 

An analysis by the Associated Press found that more than 18,000 voters’ eligibility has been challenged across forty Georgia counties in the last two years. It reported that local election offices rejected most of the challenges.