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Comment by thrower123 | Hacker News Reader

I am not sure that it can be considered doxxing if the personally identifying information is what used to be available in the phone book. Ma Bell was apparently doxxing us for decades before it was cool.

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The phone book didn't tell you that someone was an absentee voter.

Or if they were disabled.

At least in my state, New Mexico, you can look that information up for any voter with just a name and birthday.

You can look up whether a voter in the state is casting an absentee ballot with just their name and birthday?

Gosh, if I were a criminal, there's an awful lot of homes that are likely candidates for robbing now that a list of "who is not home + their address" is public.

New Mexico doesn't require an excuse to vote with an absentee ballot¹.

Lots of states that do restrict them allow anyone over a certain age to use it.

So it doesn't really imply that they aren't home.

1. http://www.sos.state.nm.us/Voter_Information/Absentee_and_Ea...

Sure, but it is a much stronger indication that they are not home than just having a list of all registered voters in a state.

There are much easier ways of finding out whether or not someone is home than looking up if they are going to be voting. Just find out if everyone living there has a 9-5 job, for example.

Or you could just look up the social media pages of people in the town you're interested in, and see who's posting pictures from the Caribbean.

And it didn't include their voter registration number.

What exactly would the use of that be? I have not the slightest idea what mine might be. It wouldn't surprise me at all if I have several, as I have registered in several different towns across multiple states over the years, and I don't have a lot of confidence that those records are cross-audited and resolved.

Which would have a strong correlation to "I'm out of the house at the moment."

Also known as an invitation to come rob me.

The Secretary of State (candidate Kemp in this case) could have handled this a lot better ... but chose not to.

> the personally identifying information is what used to be available in the phone book

I think on HN we know well that changes in technology greatly affect the value and power of information.

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