13 ms·

Mysterious startup Shadow under scrutiny after Iowa caucus meltdown

83 points by cpeterso 7y ago

gremlinsinc 7y ago
Biggest thing that worries me is how and in what way is Pete Buttigieg related to the app. First off could this be more out of an Austin Powers movie? Literally the company is Shadow Inc. That just wreaks of 'shady'. Next info on the corp is almost as shady as a Shell Corp. Here's gist from this article: * IA Caucus mobile app was created by Shadow Inc. * Shadow website has scant info except that they worked for Hillary's campaign. * Related to Groundbase started in 2017 by Gerard Niemara who's twitter is private. According to LI he worked w/ Clinton's campaign in 2015-2016. * Raised money from Higher Ground Labs - "investors, partners, collaborators, trainers of tech for progressives" * Tuesday Higher Ground labs no longer listed Groundbase[1] as portfolio company but cached version in google search does (Jan 18th) [2] * 01/2019 Nonprofit Acronymn announced it acquired Groundbase [3] * Niemara served as CTO of Acronym while running Groundbase * Affiliated with Pacronym a political action committee * Also invests in https://lockwoodstrategy.com https://lockwoodstrategy.com and https://couriernewsroom.com/ https://couriernewsroom.com/ * David Plouffe Former Obama campaign manager and Acronym board member disavows knowledge of Shadow [4] * "In a blog post introducing Shadow now only visible via the Internet Archive[5], Niemira wrote: “Acronym is thrilled to announce the launch of Shadow, a new technology company that will exist under the Acronym umbrella and build accessible technological infrastructure and tools to enable campaigns to better harness, integrate, and manage data across the platforms and technologies they all use." * Dem campaigns using Shadow include: Mayor Pete, Joe Biden, and Kirsten Gillibrand. Also the TX Dem Party, and Super PAC 'For Our Future', and NV Dem Party [6] [1] https://highergroundlabs.com/companies/groundbase/ https://highergroundlabs.com/companies/groundbase/ [2] https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9nALhmWVDiYJ:https://highergroundlabs.com/companies/groundbase/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=fr https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9nALhm... [3] https://twitter.com/taraemcg/status/1085980913467564033 https://twitter.com/taraemcg/status/1085980913467564033 [4] https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1224585857832816641 https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1224585857832816641 [5] https://web.archive.org/web/20190415130443/https://www.anotheracronym.org/introducing-shadow/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190415130443/https://www.anoth... [6] https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/04/after-epic-nightmare-iowa-democratic-app-built-secretive-firm-shadow-inc-comes-under https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/04/after-epic-nigh...
- sct202 7y ago
  Do you think that Pete is so stupid to publicly pay a company to rig a caucus for him when caucus voting is literally public with a paper trail?
  - gremlinsinc 7y ago
    He could be even more stupid to hire a company named Shadow Inc, that has ties to the DNC that could make him look complicit in any rigging should it happen. Was it smart? Definitely not. So stupid for one thing or another, still means stupid right?
  - ploxolo 7y ago
    Whatever Gremlinsinc assessment of Pete's intelligence is, the facts he just listed have very bad optics for Pete, the DNC and the Democrat party. If they again squeeze Bernie out of the nomination, any other candidate will not have a strong base of supporters.
    - filoleg 7y ago
      Judging by how this election season went so far up to this point (including all the primary debates controversies [0]), it seems like DNC didnt learn anything and decided to double down on their previous efforts. I predict that Bernie is almost definitely going to get squeezed out. 0. Referring mostly to that one where they asked Bernie a question based on a made up quote regarding female president viability, and then proceeded asking further questions from other candidates treating that quote as a fact, despite Bernie explicitly denying it mere seconds before. And Bernie isn’t even my first choice candidate, but seeing all this happen just felt really surreal and unfair.
  - Notorious_BLT 7y ago
    The man gave a victory speech with no results in that show him winning. This, along with the delay in announcing the results, is all an effort to influence the outcomes of the upcoming primaries by showing false "momentum" in Iowa. If the official results aren't out, no one can prove him wrong yet. This morning, above all other natural trending information on Twitter, Bloomberg had a tidal wave of articles promoted saying how good Iowa was for several candidates, none of which is supported by the data that I've seen. It seems Sanders won pretty substantially, and the DNC is trying to delay results to control the narrative long enough to get results from other states.
lostgame 7y ago
Shadow, Inc.? Really? Sounds like a Bond villan's organization, what a strange name, especially with 'mysterious' put before it.
- LOL_Arch_Linux 7y ago
  It is an odd choice of a name for a company that wants to build public-facing applications for the Government.
protomyth 7y ago
They named the company Shadow. I am reminded of the movie quote "They literally call themselves Decepticons. That doesn’t set off any red flags?". I can almost see the name used in countries that have legitimate shadow governments, but in the US this is a really bad name akin to having cavalry in the name when focusing on the reservations (yes, someone did, they though it was cute and they did prove unhelpful). Names are a first impression and this is a really bad one.
- dguaraglia 7y ago
  This and 'Fraud Guarantee' will go down as the stupidest company names of the decade, whether they were involved in malfeasance or not.
  - generationP 7y ago
    "Fraud Guarantee", supposedly, was meant to mitigate the effect of having "fraud" pop up as the first suggestion when you google for Parnas's name. (See https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/now-we-know-why-indicted-giuliani-associate-named-his-business-fraud-guarantee/ https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/now-we-know-why-indicte... .)
    - dguaraglia 7y ago
      Hah, in that case it's not as stupid of a name. Reminds me a bit of how Blackwater keeps changing names every few years to avoid the PR nightmare associated with... well, being a bunch of mercenaries killing people for money.
davinic 7y ago
Mysterious startup? Seems identical to almost every small dev shop I've ever seen, complete with bizdev people who over-promise and clients who might not know better. My understanding is that they started development just 2 months ago and never bothered to train users. That's all I need to know.
- donarb 7y ago
  MSNBC interviewed a precinct captain who stated she had no problems with the app. Last week they were given test PINs for training purposes so training was provided.
  - davinic 7y ago
    Sure, but many did, and many because they were in rooms with large numbers of people and they were depending on wifi and cell service, which often fails in those situations. Then throw in different phones, OSs, versions, etc. Word is that this app was rolled out with no user training.
ourmandave 7y ago
Shadow, we move fast and break Iowa.
supernova87a 7y ago
Enough with the conspiracy, mystery, scheming, evil explanations of what's going on. Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice, and that's all that's going on here. This is a bunch of amateur app coders, managed by amateur product designers and sales people, who got paid by clueless amateur voting registrars, to make an app that was rushed, not tested at scale, deployed without training, and allowed to get Iowa into this situation by someone not treating it with the seriousness it deserved. No more, no less. Just normal human incompetence.
- beepboopbeep 7y ago
  Something, something, monorail.
- danielg6 7y ago
  Or maybe the situation was treated with seriousness, hence the outcome...
- ProAm 7y ago
  There is no proof of either yet. What makes everyone think this is suspicious is there is proof of election meddling from overseas in the past. So there is proof elections can be modified and I doubt the IT skills groups like these to realize or adequately stop tampering. Without evidence everyone is assuming everything.
  - colejohnson66 7y ago
    Did Russia actually meddle with (read: modify) the election? Or did they just buy ads? I thought it was only the latter.
    - protomyth 7y ago
      There is no evidence of changing votes by any other nation. Ad buying and fake advocacy accounts have been shown to exist for multiple nations. Also, multiple countries have given money to organizations in the US for non-election work that seems to end up on elections. The DC advocacy culture is a wonder to behold from money both domestic and imported.
VengefulCynic 7y ago
As an Iowan who has had the dubious pleasure of having used Shadow's software, I would like a lot of scrutiny directed at both Shadow and their software. I worked as a Precinct Captain for one of the Caucuses in Iowa last night, and I didn't personally have any issues. But I heard from colleagues who definitely did. Also, yesterday we got an email with a 7-page google doc instructing us on how to reset the browser caches on our phones to avoid issues with data carry-over from the Mock Caucuses that we had been holding. It's entirely possible that my ability to follow directions and my status as Not-an-Octegenarian-Caucus-Volunteer is all that kept me out of trouble. As a software guy, all I can say for sure is that I'm overwhelmingly grateful that we kept paper backups so we don't have to rely on this software.
- TheHypnotist 7y ago
  It's entirely possible that my ability to follow directions and my status as Not-an-Octegenarian-Caucus-Volunteer is all that kept me out of trouble. This is most likely the case. This is very much an issue in my day to day with applications like SAP CRM, some people get it, some people learn it, some never get it.
- munk-a 7y ago
  All software involved in the voting process should (1) not exist except for tallying and communication purposes (no electronic voter records) and (2) be open sourced and verified by known third parties. Four days ago when the register dug into this they were refused access to test the app[1], they were not given mockups or any information about the UI[1], they weren't told who developed the app[1], they weren't told how the contract was given out to develop the app[1], they weren't told why the app was thought to be necessary[1], and they were told the app was verified by a third party testing firm but that who that was couldn't be disclosed[1]. Iowa moving forward with this app was extremely ill-advised and I'm actually rather sad that the register didn't raise more hell on receiving all these red flags. 1. A red flag...
  - aksss 7y ago
    security by obscurity is not security.
jstewartmobile 7y ago
Considering the "butterfly ballot" and the "hanging chad," what on earth made someone think an app was a good idea where people can't even figure out paper? The process needs to be dumbed-down--kindergaten style. Give everone a jellybean to put in their candidate's jar, and if some dummy eats his jellybean instead of depositing it...
- elicash 7y ago
  The bigger problem wasn't that the app used by precinct campaigns to report back to the Dem Party, it was the convoluted rounds of voting that didn't add up in some precincts and caused the party to have to review all of the paper backups. So yeah, getting rid of the caucus (which is undemocratic anyway) and letting people just vote for who they want is the solution. Fixing the app doesn't fix that people were too confused in certain precincts to count it correctly.
ghostoftiber 7y ago
Wow I disagree with the tone of the article. They're comparing the operations of the Shadow company with the Trump company. That's a false equivalence - Trump as purchasing social media services. Shadow is literally inserting itself into the tally and facilitation of the voting process, and it's got links to Clinton. That's not social media advertising, that really smacks of straight up voter fraud and abuse to me.
- elicash 7y ago
  Obviously Dem vendors will have worked with Dem candidates. I'm working with a vendor right now that works with Bloomberg, even though my org hasn't endorsed yet. (We wall that Bloomberg consultant off from our work. If we couldn't work with firms that worked with any of the candidates, then we couldn't hire ANYBODY.)
  - ghostoftiber 7y ago
    That's not the concern - the concern is that a company which doesn't seem to list it's roster or have any public information about it is now attaching itself directly to the voting systems. The Community has been in an uproar before about how opaque code is in voting machines, why shouldn't we be concerned about not only the code but the employees of a company who are involved in voting?
    - elicash 7y ago
      These aren't voting machines. "Involved in voting" is quite misleading. The app doesn't actually help with the voting part. They help in the calculation of delegates and the transmission. The votes are recorded on paper. This had a calculator tool (that actually functioned correctly) to count the delegates. The part the failed was the transmission of results to the Iowa Dem Party. The back-up (in addition to paper) was the phone hotline they normally use, but that got overloaded. Additionally, the overall caucus process for reporting -- unrelated to the tech -- was more convoluted this time around and the numbers didn't match for the different rounds of voting. This bigger problem caused the party to have to go back to the paper backups in order to verify results. That's what took so long. I'd be shocked if anybody actually disputed any of the results. Every campaign keeps their own records of as many precincts as possible and they're announced to everybody attending. Plus, there's the paper. And people record video of these events on their phones these days, too. In short, this wasn't a voting system, as you claim. It was a reporting system. What's the vendor they used for the phone reporting system? Are you upset that you don't know the names of the employees who run that phone hotline system? I'd be fine with a requirement for that for reporting systems, but nobody has ever asked for it previously for past elections so we shouldn't be shocked we don't have it now. Also, when you said it had "links to Clinton," I took it as you had a concern about that. Glad we're both in agreement that it's actually quite normal for vendors that Dem Party would and should use. It's normal - encouraged, even! - for Democratic vendors to work with Democratic candidates.
Stranger43 7y ago
I don't get the mystery angle, it's the usual loyalty over competency game where the insiders reward you from having done work for an previous campaign or being an grassroot college activist by making sure you keep getting work. It's the good old pork barrel and an proud American tradition that overstayed it's welcome with the general public but remains a big part of America's political economy.
jeffFrom18F 7y ago
Probably being wildly naive here, but wouldn't it be better if there were an open-source solution for this sort of thing that could be used by both parties?
- fuqmachine 7y ago
  Google forms, not open-source but way more competent than the crony hires. I mean wouldn't Whatsapp's E2E work here?
- elicash 7y ago
  Every state has a very different process. Even within the same state, Iowa Dems and Republicans have a different process. The work this company did in Nevada for their caucus (which now reportedly will not be used, for obvious reasons) had to be a different solution than the one for Iowa. But yeah, somebody could probably build an open source solution that has the calculator and other functions. I think they'll likely go back to just transmitting via phone, though.
munk-a 7y ago
How loud do all the software developers need to yell "use paper ballots" before people figure out that electronic counting (for quicker results) isn't a terrible idea, but electronic records and simply adding more technology to the system makes voting confirmation and integrity weaker. This app had no reason to exist - there isn't a reason why they couldn't use almost any other approach to collect the results for publishing - there are very few numbers to keep track of and people are only looking for provisional numbers on election night anyways.
- coredog64 7y ago
  Paper ballots are already being used. There is an exquisite paper trail, with signed and personally identifiable records being kept until the convention.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
solarkraft 7y ago
Why exactly was this app needed at all? Couldn't a $13 node.js app or telegram bot have done the job of receiving a number from under 2000 people just as well?
- coredog64 7y ago
  AIUI, part of this is the result of 2016. There was an ask for more of the intermediate numbers rather than just straight up count.
- Stranger43 7y ago
  Apps are cool man!!! It's kind of part of the general back to the 90ies mentality of the DNC, yes there absolutely no need for an custom app to do this especially given it's a caucus and not a closed box election, and as there is no reason for keeping the raw data secret doing the counting process, an signed message on any platform(it could and should be public) would be sufficient security. Heck telefaxes with an off the shelf OCR business grade solution at the other end would have been fast effective and likely cheaper but would have meant less opportunity for the Iowa party bosses to mingle with the well connected Washington apparatus. This just smell of vanity project where a bunch of low power politicians felt their status would increase with an successful app launch only to have the whole thing blow up in their faces.
tempsy 7y ago
I have no idea what all the features of this app are but nothing I’ve heard makes it sound like this couldn’t have been accomplished using a google form and google sheet
brutal_chaos_ 7y ago
Many comments here and in other threads regarding this app seem to put blame on the DNC. Please note, however, the app was commissioned by the Iowa Democratic Party (IDP), not the DNC.

83 points by cpeterso 7y ago

Biggest thing that worries me is how and in what way is Pete Buttigieg related to the app. First off could this be more out of an Austin Powers movie? Literally the company is Shadow Inc. That just wreaks of 'shady'. Next info on the corp is almost as shady as a Shell Corp. Here's gist from this article: * IA Caucus mobile app was created by Shadow Inc. * Shadow website has scant info except that they worked for Hillary's campaign. * Related to Groundbase started in 2017 by Gerard Niemara who's twitter is private. According to LI he worked w/ Clinton's campaign in 2015-2016. * Raised money from Higher Ground Labs - "investors, partners, collaborators, trainers of tech for progressives" * Tuesday Higher Ground labs no longer listed Groundbase[1] as portfolio company but cached version in google search does (Jan 18th) [2] * 01/2019 Nonprofit Acronymn announced it acquired Groundbase [3] * Niemara served as CTO of Acronym while running Groundbase * Affiliated with Pacronym a political action committee * Also invests in https://lockwoodstrategy.com https://lockwoodstrategy.com and https://couriernewsroom.com/ https://couriernewsroom.com/ * David Plouffe Former Obama campaign manager and Acronym board member disavows knowledge of Shadow [4] * "In a blog post introducing Shadow now only visible via the Internet Archive[5], Niemira wrote: “Acronym is thrilled to announce the launch of Shadow, a new technology company that will exist under the Acronym umbrella and build accessible technological infrastructure and tools to enable campaigns to better harness, integrate, and manage data across the platforms and technologies they all use." * Dem campaigns using Shadow include: Mayor Pete, Joe Biden, and Kirsten Gillibrand. Also the TX Dem Party, and Super PAC 'For Our Future', and NV Dem Party [6] [1] https://highergroundlabs.com/companies/groundbase/ https://highergroundlabs.com/companies/groundbase/ [2] https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9nALhmWVDiYJ:https://highergroundlabs.com/companies/groundbase/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=fr https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9nALhm... [3] https://twitter.com/taraemcg/status/1085980913467564033 https://twitter.com/taraemcg/status/1085980913467564033 [4] https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1224585857832816641 https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1224585857832816641 [5] https://web.archive.org/web/20190415130443/https://www.anotheracronym.org/introducing-shadow/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190415130443/https://www.anoth... [6] https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/04/after-epic-nightmare-iowa-democratic-app-built-secretive-firm-shadow-inc-comes-under https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/04/after-epic-nigh...

sct202 7y ago
Do you think that Pete is so stupid to publicly pay a company to rig a caucus for him when caucus voting is literally public with a paper trail?
- gremlinsinc 7y ago
  He could be even more stupid to hire a company named Shadow Inc, that has ties to the DNC that could make him look complicit in any rigging should it happen. Was it smart? Definitely not. So stupid for one thing or another, still means stupid right?
- ploxolo 7y ago
  Whatever Gremlinsinc assessment of Pete's intelligence is, the facts he just listed have very bad optics for Pete, the DNC and the Democrat party. If they again squeeze Bernie out of the nomination, any other candidate will not have a strong base of supporters.
  - filoleg 7y ago
    Judging by how this election season went so far up to this point (including all the primary debates controversies [0]), it seems like DNC didnt learn anything and decided to double down on their previous efforts. I predict that Bernie is almost definitely going to get squeezed out. 0. Referring mostly to that one where they asked Bernie a question based on a made up quote regarding female president viability, and then proceeded asking further questions from other candidates treating that quote as a fact, despite Bernie explicitly denying it mere seconds before. And Bernie isn’t even my first choice candidate, but seeing all this happen just felt really surreal and unfair.
- Notorious_BLT 7y ago
  The man gave a victory speech with no results in that show him winning. This, along with the delay in announcing the results, is all an effort to influence the outcomes of the upcoming primaries by showing false "momentum" in Iowa. If the official results aren't out, no one can prove him wrong yet. This morning, above all other natural trending information on Twitter, Bloomberg had a tidal wave of articles promoted saying how good Iowa was for several candidates, none of which is supported by the data that I've seen. It seems Sanders won pretty substantially, and the DNC is trying to delay results to control the narrative long enough to get results from other states.

lostgame 7y ago

Shadow, Inc.? Really? Sounds like a Bond villan's organization, what a strange name, especially with 'mysterious' put before it.

LOL_Arch_Linux 7y ago
It is an odd choice of a name for a company that wants to build public-facing applications for the Government.

protomyth 7y ago

They named the company Shadow. I am reminded of the movie quote "They literally call themselves Decepticons. That doesn’t set off any red flags?". I can almost see the name used in countries that have legitimate shadow governments, but in the US this is a really bad name akin to having cavalry in the name when focusing on the reservations (yes, someone did, they though it was cute and they did prove unhelpful). Names are a first impression and this is a really bad one.

dguaraglia 7y ago
This and 'Fraud Guarantee' will go down as the stupidest company names of the decade, whether they were involved in malfeasance or not.
- generationP 7y ago
  "Fraud Guarantee", supposedly, was meant to mitigate the effect of having "fraud" pop up as the first suggestion when you google for Parnas's name. (See https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/now-we-know-why-indicted-giuliani-associate-named-his-business-fraud-guarantee/ https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/now-we-know-why-indicte... .)
  - dguaraglia 7y ago
    Hah, in that case it's not as stupid of a name. Reminds me a bit of how Blackwater keeps changing names every few years to avoid the PR nightmare associated with... well, being a bunch of mercenaries killing people for money.

davinic 7y ago

Mysterious startup? Seems identical to almost every small dev shop I've ever seen, complete with bizdev people who over-promise and clients who might not know better. My understanding is that they started development just 2 months ago and never bothered to train users. That's all I need to know.

donarb 7y ago
MSNBC interviewed a precinct captain who stated she had no problems with the app. Last week they were given test PINs for training purposes so training was provided.
- davinic 7y ago
  Sure, but many did, and many because they were in rooms with large numbers of people and they were depending on wifi and cell service, which often fails in those situations. Then throw in different phones, OSs, versions, etc. Word is that this app was rolled out with no user training.

ourmandave 7y ago

Shadow, we move fast and break Iowa.

supernova87a 7y ago

Enough with the conspiracy, mystery, scheming, evil explanations of what's going on. Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice, and that's all that's going on here. This is a bunch of amateur app coders, managed by amateur product designers and sales people, who got paid by clueless amateur voting registrars, to make an app that was rushed, not tested at scale, deployed without training, and allowed to get Iowa into this situation by someone not treating it with the seriousness it deserved. No more, no less. Just normal human incompetence.

beepboopbeep 7y ago
Something, something, monorail.
danielg6 7y ago
Or maybe the situation was treated with seriousness, hence the outcome...
ProAm 7y ago
There is no proof of either yet. What makes everyone think this is suspicious is there is proof of election meddling from overseas in the past. So there is proof elections can be modified and I doubt the IT skills groups like these to realize or adequately stop tampering. Without evidence everyone is assuming everything.
- colejohnson66 7y ago
  Did Russia actually meddle with (read: modify) the election? Or did they just buy ads? I thought it was only the latter.
  - protomyth 7y ago
    There is no evidence of changing votes by any other nation. Ad buying and fake advocacy accounts have been shown to exist for multiple nations. Also, multiple countries have given money to organizations in the US for non-election work that seems to end up on elections. The DC advocacy culture is a wonder to behold from money both domestic and imported.

VengefulCynic 7y ago

As an Iowan who has had the dubious pleasure of having used Shadow's software, I would like a lot of scrutiny directed at both Shadow and their software. I worked as a Precinct Captain for one of the Caucuses in Iowa last night, and I didn't personally have any issues. But I heard from colleagues who definitely did. Also, yesterday we got an email with a 7-page google doc instructing us on how to reset the browser caches on our phones to avoid issues with data carry-over from the Mock Caucuses that we had been holding. It's entirely possible that my ability to follow directions and my status as Not-an-Octegenarian-Caucus-Volunteer is all that kept me out of trouble. As a software guy, all I can say for sure is that I'm overwhelmingly grateful that we kept paper backups so we don't have to rely on this software.

TheHypnotist 7y ago
It's entirely possible that my ability to follow directions and my status as Not-an-Octegenarian-Caucus-Volunteer is all that kept me out of trouble. This is most likely the case. This is very much an issue in my day to day with applications like SAP CRM, some people get it, some people learn it, some never get it.
munk-a 7y ago
All software involved in the voting process should (1) not exist except for tallying and communication purposes (no electronic voter records) and (2) be open sourced and verified by known third parties. Four days ago when the register dug into this they were refused access to test the app[1], they were not given mockups or any information about the UI[1], they weren't told who developed the app[1], they weren't told how the contract was given out to develop the app[1], they weren't told why the app was thought to be necessary[1], and they were told the app was verified by a third party testing firm but that who that was couldn't be disclosed[1]. Iowa moving forward with this app was extremely ill-advised and I'm actually rather sad that the register didn't raise more hell on receiving all these red flags. 1. A red flag...
- aksss 7y ago
  security by obscurity is not security.

jstewartmobile 7y ago

Considering the "butterfly ballot" and the "hanging chad," what on earth made someone think an app was a good idea where people can't even figure out paper? The process needs to be dumbed-down--kindergaten style. Give everone a jellybean to put in their candidate's jar, and if some dummy eats his jellybean instead of depositing it...

elicash 7y ago
The bigger problem wasn't that the app used by precinct campaigns to report back to the Dem Party, it was the convoluted rounds of voting that didn't add up in some precincts and caused the party to have to review all of the paper backups. So yeah, getting rid of the caucus (which is undemocratic anyway) and letting people just vote for who they want is the solution. Fixing the app doesn't fix that people were too confused in certain precincts to count it correctly.

ghostoftiber 7y ago

Wow I disagree with the tone of the article. They're comparing the operations of the Shadow company with the Trump company. That's a false equivalence - Trump as purchasing social media services. Shadow is literally inserting itself into the tally and facilitation of the voting process, and it's got links to Clinton. That's not social media advertising, that really smacks of straight up voter fraud and abuse to me.

elicash 7y ago
Obviously Dem vendors will have worked with Dem candidates. I'm working with a vendor right now that works with Bloomberg, even though my org hasn't endorsed yet. (We wall that Bloomberg consultant off from our work. If we couldn't work with firms that worked with any of the candidates, then we couldn't hire ANYBODY.)
- ghostoftiber 7y ago
  That's not the concern - the concern is that a company which doesn't seem to list it's roster or have any public information about it is now attaching itself directly to the voting systems. The Community has been in an uproar before about how opaque code is in voting machines, why shouldn't we be concerned about not only the code but the employees of a company who are involved in voting?
  - elicash 7y ago
    These aren't voting machines. "Involved in voting" is quite misleading. The app doesn't actually help with the voting part. They help in the calculation of delegates and the transmission. The votes are recorded on paper. This had a calculator tool (that actually functioned correctly) to count the delegates. The part the failed was the transmission of results to the Iowa Dem Party. The back-up (in addition to paper) was the phone hotline they normally use, but that got overloaded. Additionally, the overall caucus process for reporting -- unrelated to the tech -- was more convoluted this time around and the numbers didn't match for the different rounds of voting. This bigger problem caused the party to have to go back to the paper backups in order to verify results. That's what took so long. I'd be shocked if anybody actually disputed any of the results. Every campaign keeps their own records of as many precincts as possible and they're announced to everybody attending. Plus, there's the paper. And people record video of these events on their phones these days, too. In short, this wasn't a voting system, as you claim. It was a reporting system. What's the vendor they used for the phone reporting system? Are you upset that you don't know the names of the employees who run that phone hotline system? I'd be fine with a requirement for that for reporting systems, but nobody has ever asked for it previously for past elections so we shouldn't be shocked we don't have it now. Also, when you said it had "links to Clinton," I took it as you had a concern about that. Glad we're both in agreement that it's actually quite normal for vendors that Dem Party would and should use. It's normal - encouraged, even! - for Democratic vendors to work with Democratic candidates.

Stranger43 7y ago

I don't get the mystery angle, it's the usual loyalty over competency game where the insiders reward you from having done work for an previous campaign or being an grassroot college activist by making sure you keep getting work. It's the good old pork barrel and an proud American tradition that overstayed it's welcome with the general public but remains a big part of America's political economy.

jeffFrom18F 7y ago

Probably being wildly naive here, but wouldn't it be better if there were an open-source solution for this sort of thing that could be used by both parties?

fuqmachine 7y ago
Google forms, not open-source but way more competent than the crony hires. I mean wouldn't Whatsapp's E2E work here?
elicash 7y ago
Every state has a very different process. Even within the same state, Iowa Dems and Republicans have a different process. The work this company did in Nevada for their caucus (which now reportedly will not be used, for obvious reasons) had to be a different solution than the one for Iowa. But yeah, somebody could probably build an open source solution that has the calculator and other functions. I think they'll likely go back to just transmitting via phone, though.

munk-a 7y ago

How loud do all the software developers need to yell "use paper ballots" before people figure out that electronic counting (for quicker results) isn't a terrible idea, but electronic records and simply adding more technology to the system makes voting confirmation and integrity weaker. This app had no reason to exist - there isn't a reason why they couldn't use almost any other approach to collect the results for publishing - there are very few numbers to keep track of and people are only looking for provisional numbers on election night anyways.

coredog64 7y ago
Paper ballots are already being used. There is an exquisite paper trail, with signed and personally identifiable records being kept until the convention.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

solarkraft 7y ago

Why exactly was this app needed at all? Couldn't a $13 node.js app or telegram bot have done the job of receiving a number from under 2000 people just as well?

coredog64 7y ago
AIUI, part of this is the result of 2016. There was an ask for more of the intermediate numbers rather than just straight up count.
Stranger43 7y ago
Apps are cool man!!! It's kind of part of the general back to the 90ies mentality of the DNC, yes there absolutely no need for an custom app to do this especially given it's a caucus and not a closed box election, and as there is no reason for keeping the raw data secret doing the counting process, an signed message on any platform(it could and should be public) would be sufficient security. Heck telefaxes with an off the shelf OCR business grade solution at the other end would have been fast effective and likely cheaper but would have meant less opportunity for the Iowa party bosses to mingle with the well connected Washington apparatus. This just smell of vanity project where a bunch of low power politicians felt their status would increase with an successful app launch only to have the whole thing blow up in their faces.

tempsy 7y ago

I have no idea what all the features of this app are but nothing I’ve heard makes it sound like this couldn’t have been accomplished using a google form and google sheet

brutal_chaos_ 7y ago

Many comments here and in other threads regarding this app seem to put blame on the DNC. Please note, however, the app was commissioned by the Iowa Democratic Party (IDP), not the DNC.