HAMPTON ROADS, Va. — A Virginia elections employee "inadvertently" shared a state-registered voter list that included personal information, according to the Virginia Department of Elections.
On March 6, the Department of Elections got a request for vote history for a specific district in Virginia. Instead, an elections employee sent the state-registered voter list which included personally identifiable information, officials said.
Officials said the action was unintentional.
The recipient who purchased the information immediately notified the Department of Elections, and the data was destroyed per state policy.
"The incident was caused by human error and there is no reason to believe that the disclosed data will be used for fraudulent purposes," the Department of Elections said in a statement. "The department has determined that the incident is not the work of a malicious actor or a system failure. There is no indication that the data was further shared or downloaded."
The Office of the State Inspector General conducted an investigation, and steps have been taken to strengthen the Department of Elections' security processes.
"Access has been moved from the department that made the error and data sharing related tasks have been reassigned. The department has re-trained employees and has increased restrictions on its data sharing protocols," officials said in the statement.
