MyLaptopGPS

After the GOP Laptop Theft a few weeks ago (see the entry here), everyone should have tuned in to the election (well, you should have done that anyway) and paid special attention to Missouri.

And if you had your eye on Missouri, you might not have noticed the little blip in Charlottesville, Virginia. As reported by Henry Graff at NBC29, two laptops were stolen sometime in the middle of the night on Tuesday, after the polls had closed but before a team came to retrieve the laptops.

Combined, the laptops contained Voter Registration information for everyone registered in the city of Charlottesville. They contained names, addresses, dates of birth, and DMV identification numbers of everyone in the system.

The head of the electoral board in Charlottesville explained to NBC29 that it’s “standard protocol” to leave election equipment behind overnight. Generally, a team comes to collect the equipment the next morning.

The cinder block through the window of the Tonsler Park Polling Station beat them to it, it seems.

The vendor supplying the polling software claims to have run all 25,000 names registered and none of the names were paired with Social Security numbers. Still, the laptops remain lost, and Crime Stoppers had opened a hot-line for anyone with information on the break-in.

MyLaptopGPS, anti-theft software, and even simple security measures like laptop locks could have prevented this theft.