Technically Speaking /POLITICAL Commentary
By Perry Busby
In 1971, a local newspaper published a story that misquoted Levi Henry, Jr. Mr. Henry went to the editor and asked him to correct the statement. Recognizing that the newspaper had other intent which seemed more interested in placating their well-connected “friends” than reporting the truth or shedding a light on issues that impacted his community, Levi Henry Jr. established the Westside Gazette to be such a platform for telling the truth and sharing the positive stories about Black people. With the motto, A positive paper for a positive people, the Westside Gazette was born.
Last week I wrote an article stating Election Systems & Software, the voting machine and election management software company the county uses to tabulate and report election results, was preventing county election officials from accessing the actual database with all of the aggregate data.
In the article I stated that a senior election office official acknowledged that they could not access the election database by any other means except through the software and that ES&S representatives told them it was due to a security protocol.
Less than six hours after posting on Twitter, the story was retweeted more than 3,000 times, and a 2-minute interview on Twitter with Jennifer Cohn (@jennycohn1), an attorney and nationally known election security advocate, has been viewed more than 250,000 times.
When it comes to Twitter, I am a novice, but even I know those are impressive numbers, especially for a small African American owned newspaper and a data analyst freelancing as a columnist.
Apparently, the article and interview got the attention of someone high up at ES&S because the company tweeted a response late Saturday night. The tweet claimed the article was incorrect and the company does not control the database.
In the spirit Levi Henry, Jr. , and with the courageous backing of current publisher, Bobby Henry, Sr., the Westside Gazette said we stand by our story. We also offered to write a follow up story if they granted the election office access, we would write that story as well.
ES&S followed up with an email on Monday evening, expressing their thanks for writing an update article and shared a link to their Twitter page and a tweet stating, “ES&S customers have the ability to access all aspects of their election database, including election results, cast vote records and ballot images for verification of results. These are the facts, despite a recent article which misconstrued statements from the Broward County IT Director. ES&S does not and cannot control a customer database and does not and cannot access any portion of the customer system without being on location and with specific authorization. Security best practices mean credentialed and authorized users query and retrieve information from their database using a secure software interface. Doing so protects the integrity of the database. Voting systems are isolated systems, meaning only authorized and credentialed local users can access them.”
Based on their statement, ES&S wants me to ignore the Westside Gazette’s legacy of sharing the truth with our community, by saying I misunderstood what I heard. Me, a data analyst with over thirty years of IT experience, misunderstood the response to a question, I asked.
Not only does the Westside Gazette stand behind our story, ES&S proves our argument in their response.
Hidden between the high-tech buzzwords and Madison Avenue marketing, ES&S states, “Security best practices mean credentialed and authorized users query and retrieve information from their database using a secure software interface.”
This in essence proves our assertion was correct. Technically Speaking, data resides in a layer beneath software. Software gives you the ability to manipulate and work with data, but data’s use extends far beyond the limits of whatever software that is accessing.
Data resides in a database. The Broward SOE office uses a Microsoft SQL Server data-base, which many major corporations and government agencies also use. These databases have their own security policies and backup retention procedures to ensure data security and integrity.
ES&S insistence that they provide access only through their software for security and integrity purposes is nothing more than slick double-talk. Election officials and canvassing board member should think twice before certifying any ES&S generated reports.
Let me know what you think. Email me at perrybusby03@gmail.com. As always stay tuned to the Westside Gazette for more information about your vote.
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