by Ellen H.

March 6, 2020

The first primary for the 2020 presidential election, the Iowa Caucus, started this election cycle with a bumpy ride. The results were delayed for several days, after an app malfunction occurred. Candidates even began to claim victory before results were even released. 

The Iowa Cause marks the start of the primary season, and it is one of the most important caucuses; partly because it is the first one, but usually the candidate who wins the Iowa Caucus gains a bit more momentum leading into the other primaries and caucuses. The Iowa Caucus has had success stories in the past and has given underdogs good momentum moving forward in the election, including the young Senator Barack Obama, but according to the New York Times “the fact that most candidates who win… don’t become president.” Leads some to believe Iowa is not as significant as some make it out to be. Others also do not think that Iowa’s white population reflects American diversity enough and should not hold the status of the first Caucus. 

After a few days of confusion, the results of the Iowa Caucus were finally released, but no winner has officially been declared. Former South Bend Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders are tied for first place. Buttigeig has 26.2% of delegates and 43,190 votes, while Sanders has 26.1% of delegates and 45,856 votes, which has raised some eyebrows on the methods used in calculating delegates. Buttigeig claimed victory before the results were released, and Sanders claimed victory after he received internal numbers. After the two front runners, there is Sen. Elizabeth Warren in third with 18% of delegates and Former Vice President Joe Biden following her with 15.8 % of delegates.

  The trouble started with a new app that the Iowa Democratic party decided to use for result collection. The app was designed by Shadow Ink, a Washington DC company founded by Hillary Clinton staffers, and had received around forty thousand dollars in contributions from the Buttigieg Campaign. The democratic party said that there was a coding error which was one of the causes of the mayhem. Shadow Ink has since apologized for the problems with the App, after the company did not respond to questions on the night of the caucus. The Iowa Demcratic party actually had a lot of hope for the app; Troy Price, the head of the Iowa Democratic Party, who has since resigned from his position said, “…these are probably the most prepared we’ve ever been as a party for this caucus” and “we’ve run through a few different scenarios, but I can tell you we’re ready.”

Precinct chairs were told to download the app on unsecured personal devices, but there is no evidence of hacking. The app had already been known to be a problem as of 9:13 AM that Monday morning. Many had problems loging into the app that night, and others had problems downloading the app all together. After the app did not work, some precinct chairs resorted to the backup hotline. The hotline had its own share of problems, many chairs were on hold for hours, and others could not get through at all.

Chad Wolf, the acting director for the Department of Homeland Security told Fox news “our cyber and our security agency has offered to test the app from a hacking perspective. They Declined.” Troy pierce said he has no knowledge of the department of homeland security giving them that offer. Other security officials were concerned that precinct chairs were told to download the app on to personal devices, and the public was not told who the app developer was leading up to the caucus. Since the app debacle Nevada, who has already paid for the app, said they will not be using the app in their upcoming caucus.