Iowa Democratic caucuses results on hold, smartphone app fails: What we know
With the threat of election result interference looming, the Iowa Democratic Party took steps to make Monday’s caucuses more technologically secure with results that were robust.
Party officials even decided there was an app for that.
Unfortunately, there were issues with the app and instead of Democrats turning their focus toward the New Hampshire primary, to be held Feb. 11, there were still no returns Tuesday morning from Iowa.
The chaos is expected to have repercussions in the short term for the candidates who aren’t sure yet how they performed, and in the long term for the Iowa caucus process itself.
“I’d say there is going to be a real movement to change the order of primaries. I really do believe it and I never believed it before,” Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, told the Des Moines Register.
Coronavirus concerns:Hackers are using coronavirus fears to send you a computer virus: How to stop them
Social media misinformation:YouTube says no ‘deepfakes’ or ‘birther’ videos with toughened 2020 election stance
What’s this about an app used in the Iowa caucuses?
The Iowa Democratic Party, which had originally considered a virtual caucus, in which voters did not physically have to show up to be counted, opted to create a smartphone app to help caucus managers tabulate and transmit results – the end result being to get results released more quickly to the public.
The decision was set in motion before we learned about a “sweeping and systematic” Russian effort to undermine the presidential election process in 2016.
The Iowa Democratic Party has said the app was tested by an independent third party, but did not release too much information about it, the Register reported. That’s because top cybersecurity experts said releasing too much information about the app could result in the developer being targeted.
‘It was a total mess’:Caucusing is long over, but Iowa still doesn’t have a winner
Iowa caucuses:We don’t know yet who won the Iowa caucuses. But here’s what we do know.
So what was the issue?
Early in the evening, party officials began reporting that some precinct officials could not log into the app. One issue apparently was confusion with PIN numbers, reported KCRG, a Cedar Rapids, Iowa, ABC television station.
Precinct chairwoman Ruth Thompson told KCRG that organizers had problems trying to download and test the app. “We came to a consensus not to use it,” said Thompson, who chaired a precinct at Lincoln High School in Des Moines.
Emily Duff, who volunteered as a captain for Bernie Sanders’ campaign Monday night, expressed concerns about the app before her caucus, she told the Des Moines Register. Duff’s precinct in the gym at Hoover High School in Des Moines wound up reporting results manually, she said.
“People were having issues, so they ditched the app,” she said.
Precinct chairs did not have to use the app but could also tabulate results manually – a paper trail is included as a planned redundancy in the system – and call them into a hotline. But telephones were jammed, too.
“We understand that caucus chairs are attempting to – and, in many cases, failing to –report results telephonically to the party. These acute failures are occurring statewide,” wrote Dana Remus, general counsel for Biden for President, in a letter to the Iowa Democratic Party executive director Kevin Geiken and chairman Troy Price late Monday, saying the party’s new app and its backup phone hotline failed, the Register reported.
So did the app work or not?
Apparently, when the app was used to report results, not all of the data came through, a discrepancy officials noted Monday night, but could not explain at the time.
““As part of our investigation, we determined with certainty that the underlying data collected via the app was sound. While the app was recording data accurately, it was reporting out only partial data,” Iowa Democratic Party Chair Troy Price said in a statement Tuesday morning. “We have determined that this was due to a coding issue in the reporting system. This issue was identified and fixed. The application’s reporting issue did not impact the ability of precinct chairs to report data accurately.”
The system’s redundant paper trail is being used to verify and calculate the results, he said. “While our plan is to release results as soon as possible today, our ultimate goal is to ensure that the integrity and accuracy of the process continues to be upheld.”
What’s this about Shadow and where did the app come from?
The New York Times has reported that the app’s developer reportedly is Shadow, an affiliate of ACRONYM, which is a Democratic nonprofit founded in 2017 “to educate, inspire, register, and mobilize voters,” its website says. ACRONYM’s founder and CEO is Tara McGowan, a former journalist and digital producer with President Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign, The Los Angeles Times reported.
Krista Davis, who worked for the tech team on Clinton’s 2016 nomination campaign, co-founded Groundbase, Shadow’s predecessor, with Gerard Niemira, The Los Angeles Times reported. Niemira spent eight years as an engineer at Google before moving to kiva.org, a nonprofit focused on loans for developing countries.
The Iowa Democratic and Republican parties had worked with Harvard’s Defending Digital Democracy Project to develop strategies and systems to protect results and deal with any misinformation that’s reported on caucus night. These questions about the creation of the app, its usability and a plan – CNN has reported – by the state of Nevada to use the app in its caucuses on Feb. 22 means it’s a topic that won’t soon go away.
Follow USA TODAY reporter Mike Snider on Twitter: @MikeSnider.