As I mentioned in my previous post, I was surprised that a survey group knew that I submitted my ballot.

It turns out that all sorts of voter information is readily available, for purchase, from the government.

You can see the request form for Los Angeles county HERE. For $146 you can obtain a list of all registered voters in the county including their home addresses. You have to “swear” that you won’t use the information for anything except specific purposes and you must belong to any of the following class of people:

1. Elections officials. (E.C. Sections 2183, 2187, 2194).
2. Members of Congress or the Legislature. (E.C. Sections 2184, 2191, 2194).
3. Candidates for public office. (E.C. Sections 305, 2184, and 2187, subd. (g), 2191, 2194).
4. Persons, committees and proponents or opponents for or against any proposed ballot
measures or for or against any referendum or initiative measure for which legal
publication has been made. (E.C. Sections 2184 and 2187, subd. (g), 2191, 2194).
5. Chairpersons or vice chairpersons of party state central committees or party county central
committees. (E.C. Sections 2185, 2187, 2190, 2191, 2194).
6. Faculty members or researchers of an accredited educational institution for the purpose of
academic research. (E.C. Section 2194, subd. (a) (2).
7. Persons challenging the confidential registrant’s voting eligibility. Only the address may be
disclosed to the challenger, elections official and other persons as necessary to make or
defend or adjudicate the challenge. (E.C. Section 2194, subd. (b).
8. Persons who will use the index exclusively for election, scholarly, journalistic or political
research or governmental purposes, including bona fide news and polling organizations.
(E.C. Sections 2187, subd. (g) and 2194).
ACCESS TO CONFIDENTIAL VOTER REGISTRATION INFORMATION IS NOT PERMITTED TO:
1. Persons seeking to locate lost relatives. (Secretary of State memo dated 01/12/95).
2. Private investigators, skip tracers, process servers, and attorneys seeking to locate
individuals, unless those persons are employed by or on contract to a public agency.
(Secretary of State memo dated 01/12/95).
3. Any other persons/agencies as determined by the Secretary of State.

In Orange County you can purchase voter information online and that includes the status of mail-in ballot voters’ ballots.

Pretty secure, right?