The New York Times has an article out today on two new apps that harvest publicly available voter data and match it up with the app user’s contact list so you can find which of your friends have voted in this, and past elections:
If someone in your contact list has a perfect voting record, the OutVote app puts a smiley face with red hearts for eyes next to their name. Wayward voters who missed elections get a sad-faced emoji dripping a tear. https://t.co/bQ6Obp1E2f
— NYT Politics (@nytpolitics) November 4, 2018
Pretty freaking creepy if you ask us:
If anyone who is allegedly a friend of mine used an app like this and I found out about it? That person would no longer be my friend. This is also why the number of people with my actual contact info is extraordinarily low. Big Data is Orwellian as all get out. https://t.co/S6aMulUM8K
— alexandriabrown (@alexthechick) November 5, 2018
Both companies are Dem-leaning with OutVote listing its trusted partners as the DNC and MoveOn.org, among others:
And VoteWithMe links to an ActBlue donation page for those who want to support the app:
But what’s really amusing is that the NYT accidentally outed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a non-voter in the 2014 and 2016 elections:
They also reported that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat running for the House, did not vote in the last midterm elections in 2014. Nor did Alyssa Milano, an actress and activist who recently posted a video on Twitter urging her followers to vote.
So Dem Governor Andrew Cuomo disenfranchise her?
A spokesman for Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said that she was purged from the New York voter rolls in 2016 and that he was looking into 2014.
As for Alyssa Milano, why the eff did the NYT even include her in this article? She gave birth to her daughter in September of 2014:
Ms. Milano said, in a message sent via her publicist, that she was dealing at the time with severe postpartum depression after the premature birth of her daughter.
What a trashy thing to do by including her in this.
Oh, and the Dem-leaning apps were caught collecting info that they didn’t need to actually accomplish the purpose of the app:
By inspecting data that the apps harvested from our contacts, The Times also found that they took more personal data than required to match voters — such as the workplace and email address of Senator Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican.
After queries from The Times, VoteWithMe and OutVote each said they had eliminated some types of data that their apps were harvesting. In subsequent testing last week, The Times found that VoteWithMe no longer collected email addresses, street names and numbers, or company names. But OutVote continued to do so. Mr. Makiya of OutVote said the app had stopped collecting social profile data but needed the email addresses to match voter files.
Busted.
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Related:
Kassy Dillon takes Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to the woodshed over this 'disgusting email' [screenshots] https://t.co/u4zWsTD0Ux
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) October 31, 2018
Alyssa Milano hopes to boost voter turnout while dressed as naughty Captain America [photo] https://t.co/QsXsw2TXKk
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) October 31, 2018
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