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By Guy Page
The bank account information for at least two statewide candidates was inadvertently published on the Vermont Secretary of State’s page last week.
The information has since been taken down from the website, but remains in files downloaded before the error was caught. Here’s what happened: Following state law regarding financial disclosures, a Republican candidate for one statewide office and a Democratic incumbent and candidate for another statewide office submitted their tax returns to the Secretary of State. These tax returns include personal bank routing and account numbers required for refunds.
The candidates’ failure to black out this information – an act of discretion and personal protection they’re permitted to do – was not caught by election officials at the Secretary of State’s office.
VDC knows the identities and offices of the affected candidates and downloaded the over-informative tax returns before they were scrubbed by the SecState. We are choosing to not make their identities known out of concern for potential identity theft.
Director of Elections Sean Sheehan admitted the personal data breach occurred and blamed it on candidates sharing too much information and a rush of candidate petitions and financial information coming in at deadline.
Sheehan, who succeeded longtime Director of Elections Will Senning in May, 2024, Saturday, August 2 sent this explanation to VDC:
“Some candidates choose to submit more information to be publicly posted than they are required to do so. Our office does strive to redact information that could be considered sensitive while still posting submissions in a timely manner. This material tends to come in in high volumes at filing deadlines. If/when a candidate or other party notifies us of information such a bank routing number that they didn’t redact, we promptly make the change for them.
“That was the case for the candidate you reference. If you’re still seeing the routing number in the file, I’m assuming you must be looking at a cached version stored on your computer. If you refresh to see the live version, it should look like the screenshot below.
“We are also looking into changes for future election cycles that could provide additional communication to remind candidates to redact information they don’t want to be public and/or measures to prevent them from submitting more information than is required.”
The incident was reported to VDC by perennial GOP statewide office candidate and frequent Secretary of State’s office critic, H. Brooke Paige of the Orange County town of Washington.
“The SoS office seems to be claiming this breach is not their fault, but are trying to mitigate the damage?,” Paige wrote in an email last week. “This is what happens when your staff leaves (or is chased out) and your office has no institutional memory. Imagine what a [fecal matter display] the General Election will be with the new Universal Vote-by-Mail and vote harvesting complications added to the usual election troubles.”
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Categories: Elections
Selection season is upon us. Counting by EVMs will insure the correct selection. Coming soon…. RCV.
Re: “We are choosing to not make their identities known out of concern for potential identity theft.”
Please. This excuse doesn’t hold water. The targeted candidates know what happened and are likely taking action right now to prevent identity theft – as though they wouldn’t have done so when they became candidates in the first place. Withholding their names here does nothing but give the impression of censorship.
More sunlight, please.
Hi Jay – in case there may well be other (besides my own) PDF downloads ‘out there’ with the sensitive info still available, beyond the candidates’ control, it seems wise to withhold their names.
Guy: Are the financial disclosures required by State law for public consumption? Can you tell us who the candidates are who inadvertently submitted the ‘sensitive’ information? Can we see the information that isn’t ‘sensitive’?
The elections will only be fair when all candidates the People CHOOSE to place on the ballot has equal and same exposure to the voters. The elections cannot be free and transparent when the press takes it upon themselves to provide more coverage to one than others, no matter what their freedoms of the press may allow. Their freedoms of speech are arrived from and stem from the people’s freedom of speech. Our capacity to change government, who themselves have managed the economic realities such that those who feel the most indentured and indeed ARE the most indentured are not those who are represented in the field by big money.. Bernie? Behind big military, such as behind f 35’s misplaced in Burlington and harming the children, for jobs? No. though he pretends otherwise. Even Bernie couldn’t get elected without gaming the system and pressing the old folks votes from old folks homes.
Until the donation activity as a measure of political support is removed, since it is also a measure of obligation to a sub set of the people once elected, which in and of itself perverse leadership, we will not have honest elections. Not on a statewide or federal level. RFK? made invisible. Thats not a true democratic republic. We only have the choice of those who serve the donors who have a lot to give. Of course the elected are not about to create fairness, they no longer need it.
My question is did Sheehan have prior experience with issues involving elections prior to his current position? As one that follows elections, incl. local organizing, I want to be assured that any questions I might have will be addressed, and with adequate knowledge. I have already been informed that I might not even receive a response. This is not a good year, esp., for this to be a possible issue. I hesitate to explain my concerns in more detail.
Don’t Criticize the “GUY” Trying to Keep From Furthering the SoS’s Carelessness!
For those questioning Guy’s discretion in withholding the names of the three statewide candidates whose bank routing numbers and two whose social security numbers were “published” on the Secretary of State’s website – it was at my urging that he has done so. These three candidates were assured that any confidential information they errantly failed to redact would be scrubbed before the PDFs would be scanned and included in the excel document released by the SoS Election’s office.
The individual responsible for this (not Sheehan) now denies he promised to scrub the personal financial information and, while not responsible to do so, was attempting to correct the error. The problem appears to be that, while the have created new redacted documents for two of the candidates and entirely removed the third candidate’s information entirely – it appears they do not know how to sever the links to the original documents with the confidential information.
I have just checked (7:50pm – 08-05-24) and the links published in the cached excel document are still active and available to anyone who downloaded the document. Regardless of the protest by the SoS officials, they have a responsibility to remove the confidential information and if they lack the knowledge an/or skill they must seek assistance for their IT experts to do so – ASAP !
Once I am certain that this has been accomplished, I will ask Guy to release the names of the careless candidates or will do so myself. No one who has decided to run for office should have their financial wellbeing and identity placed at further risk – just to satisfy the interests of the public.
H. Brooke Paige
Washington, Vermont