In California, at least, it's private except for certain specific political uses, like sending voter slates. It is provided with a contract constraining its use.
You can't just walk into a Registrar and walk out with all the voter data and turnout history and use it however you want. Even party Central Committees and mailhouses have to sign usage agreements.
The Times cares nothing about the law, of course. This is already demonstrated when they "leak" alleged contents of people's tax returns, military intelligence briefings, etc.
The public purpose of making this info available is to reduce voter fraud. I suspect this isn't obvious to most people. The reason that we can be somewhat confident that the dead don't vote too often or that non-voters don't vote too often is that it's not that hard for anyone to run a study of voters to find people who are actually dead or who deny that they voted.
You can't just walk into a Registrar and walk out with all the voter data and turnout history and use it however you want. Even party Central Committees and mailhouses have to sign usage agreements.
The Times cares nothing about the law, of course. This is already demonstrated when they "leak" alleged contents of people's tax returns, military intelligence briefings, etc.