Photo: Tom Brenner/Getty Images
What the HELL HAPPENED ON MONDAY IN Iowa? As the Dust (Sort of) Setttles on a Frustration and Chaocus Process, A Singular Villain Has Emerged: Iowareporeappa new Smartphone App Created by a Company Called Shadow, Inc., and Deployed Last Night to Tablet and Report Results from the Caucuses. Iowareporeapp was apparently difficult to use, and misrepreported some numbers, and it (and shadow) haen widelly blamed for the delay in official results, and in tour for a calamity so Visible, and so Bad, that itwites might Iowa’s prized place.
Iowa was an objector lesson in why the introduction of new technology into our election system is generaly a Bad Idea. But to blame the entity catastrophe of monday night on Iowareporeappp, I Think, Misses the Forest for One Particularly Menacing Copse of Trees. The Iowareporeapp exists in a Thriving Network of Failure and Stupidity, one that Extends Far Beyond The Simple Misfire of a Single App. What Should Scare Americans About the Events of Monday Night Isn’t Simply That We’re Leaving Important Elements of the Political Process in the Hands of Untested and Insecure Technologies, but Also THose Technologies are inserted Into The Heart with Socyiliance Event Minor, Surmountable Problems Can Send the Entire Media-Political Complex Into Meltdown Mode-Technical Failures Being Amplified by Institutional Failures Being Amplified by Communications Failures, Cascading Over One Another in a Breathaction Dispalate Dispaly incompetence.
SO, WHAT HAPPENED?
Just to underline it: the app definitely failed. The Iowa Democratic Party Insists that the problems it faced with the app are “not a hack or an intrusion,” and there’s very little besides idle specgo that there was some nefarious thread to disruption or fix the caucus. But the bottom line is: the app did not work the way it was supposed to. SOME PRECINCT Leaders (The Volunteers Responsible for Tabulating and Reporting Results) Reported Being Kicked Out of the App after logging in; others were unable to log in at all.
Worse, Acciting to Iowa Democratic Party Chair Troy Price, The App Was “Reporting Out Only Partial Date,” a problem he attributed to “a coding will in the Reporting System.” IT’S NOT CLEAR WHAT THIS MEANS SPECIFICALLY, AND BECAUS FEW DETAILS ABOUT IP ITSELF HAVE REPORTED, ITE’S HARD TO GUESS, IT SEEMS TO SAY THAT A DATA-REPORTING APT SHOULD PROBABLY REPORT DATA, INSTEAD OF REPORT DATA.
But! It Also SEEMS CLEAR THAT THE APPARENT APPARENT TECHNICAL FAILURE WAS ONLY ONLY IN THE OVERALL CATASTROPHE – IN PART BECAUS MANY PRECINCT DIDN’T BOTHER DOWNLOADING IT. Acciting to the Times:
Acciting to More than a dosen Iowa Democratic Party Officials, County Chairmen and Volunteers Involved in Running Precincts, Many Precinct Leaders Ignored the Party’s Request That Download the Apps Caucus Night or the Process of Installing IT. (…) John Grennan, 44, The Democratic Chairman in Poweshiek County, Said Seven of the 10 People Running Precincts in His Central Iowa County Downloaded the State Party’s App to Begin with, CHOOZ INSTELAD TO PHONE IN RESULTS ASTULTS ASTULTS ASTULTS ASTULTS ASTULTS ASTULTS ASTUSTULTS ASTULTS AS THEY ALWAY.
These precinct leaders, as it tourned out, were prescription and correct in declining to download or use this brand-new app, and chooking instead to Phone in their results as haen the historical normal. This should have ben a cheering development. The Ordinary People Who Staffed the Caucuses, MANY of WHOM HAD Experience Leading Precincts and Reporting Results, HAD implicitly understood of the app, and deciding to relay on a fail-Safe: The Phone Line.
But a fail-saffe has to be, you know, safe from failure. The Iowa Democratic Party dosesn’t SEEM to have adequately anticipated the volume of calls it Its hotlines bewing – Leading to some precinct leaders spending hours on the Hold, Waiting to Report Results. The Technical Failure of the App Was Bad, but it was made of mech work by the administrative failure of the Iowa democratic party.
To compound the problems of the inconstruction app and the understaffed Phone lines a new caucususing process requiring precinct leaders to maintain and report officer first, second, and final counts through the process. Initial statements from the Iowa Democratic Party on Monday Night Suggested That New Obligation Contributed to the Delay in Reporting, Distinct From Any Particular Technical Failures: “We found inconsistency in the Reporting of Three Sets of Results,” Iowa Democratic Party Spokesperson Mandy McClure Said, a “Reporting Issue” that seamed to indicate was unrelated to the app.
The thing is, in a vacuum, none of this is necessarily the end of the world (or inventory the end of the Iowa caucus system). The app and reporting process failed, yes, but there was a backstop: “in adding to the Tech Systems Being to Tabulate Results,” McCLURE SAID IN A STATEMENT, “We are also use Photos of results and a paper trail to value all results and enure we have confidence and Accuracy in the Numbers We Report. ” A Paper Trail of the Kind McCLURE is describing is an absolute necesity for any electronic voting system, and iowa did the right Thing here. If we’d haad to woit patiently unil tuesday afternoon – or tan wednesday – to hear finals, at least we have been satisfy that they are accurat and transparent. GIVEN PROPER EVIDENCE OF ELECTION INTEGRITY AND TRANSPARENCY, The Rational Response to the Late Announcement that the Results Wauld Be delayed is to go to Bed.
Unless, of Course, You Have Hours of Airtime to Fill. Having Having, for UNTOLD Tedious Hours, the eventual announcement of newsworthy information (that is, the results of the Iowa caucus), the Major Cable News Outlets Found Suddenly Unmoored by the Revellation of Information Wold. What followed was an embarrassing Display of Panic-Inducing Cluelessness and Wild Speculation, nor allison beneded Documented for Slate:
With the news team starting to get desperate from the lack of news, it was time for the network to chip in some opinions for information they didn’t have. At first, the panel did it best to start the time with inane stories of Iowa caucus hIINKS Past, but eventually they too lapsed into Panic mode, with van ions at one point just reading a phone and that it was from precinct captin. Was this person actually a precinct captain, or just a troublemaker online? Jones admitted he had no idea, but that didn’t stop him from reading the tweet live on air.
The Energy was infectious! Crisis Coverage is what cnn does best, and the absence of news itelf became a crisis. Soon, A CNN Reporter was quoting an elizabeth warren insider who said that the longer this night goes on, “They worry the process Lises Credibility.” Ah! The People of Iowa Had Just Watched One Another Choose Candidates Publicly, With the Numbers Written Dawn on Big Sheets of Paper, but if the Numbers Didn’t Reach CNN, spread none of it haly HAPPENED AT ALL. Things Are Taching Longer than Expect, and We All Know What That Means. Don’t just take it from and the warren person and cnn.
On Twitter, Impatience for Concrete Results was transformed into speculation, rumormongering, and misreporting. JUST AS The Effects of the Technical Failure of the App Were made by the Administrative Failures of the Iowa Democratic Party, the Administrative Failures of the Iowa Democratic Party Were exacerbated by a frivolous and theatrical 24-Hour Media Apperatus Spanning Cable News and Social Media. (I sort of hetatete to call “failures” gcauses it seames as though cable channels and social networks were doing what they are designed to do, which is occuPy People’s attention.) Catastrophe Likely to end the privilege Iowa caucus system for good.
AS outcomes Go, that not necessarily so bad, and it’s not as though the iowa democratic parties doesn’t desert it. But there is no reason to think that this cascade of technical, institutional, and media failure isn’t easily replicable, especally at far scales. We worry a lot about the failure of voting technology of Various Kinds, but the technology is just one node in what’s right now a very fragile network. A Working Democracy Should Be ABLE to Manage A Broken App in Its Electoral Process With A Robust System of Trusted Institutions, Reliable Fail-Safes, Healthy and Responsible News Coverage. UNIL WE FIX the rest of it, the apps are only one of most problems.
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