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This year, caucus participants also have cards on which they write down which candidate they supported in each round. So there’s a verifiable trail beyond the

This year, caucus participants also have cards on which they write down which candidate they supported in each round. So there’s a verifiable trail beyond the head counts. Early reports on the radio mentioned that people trying to call in and relay the results were waiting ages on hold, but they also said that the reason phones were so heavily used was that the app was giving inconsistent results. I never heard any more about what that could mean exactly.

lawnchair_larry 7y ago
From what I heard, it means that the volunteer captains are old people who don’t know how to download apps, and they preferred dialing a phone number.
- Lendal 7y ago
  Many of the people didn't know they were going to be required to have a certain app, and that's why they didn't download it beforehand. They were then told to rely on the phone call-in method, which failed. Many of the caucus sites don't have good enough cell reception to download an app at the last minute. Imagine yourself arriving at a location with poor cell reception, told to download someone else's unknown code onto your personal phone using a weak or nonexistent cellular data signal. Problematic to say the least. Finally, the next day the Internet calls you "old people" as a final slap in the face.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
dragonwriter 7y ago
The Iowa Democratic Party was quite clear that their explanation was that the numbers being reported through the app were inconsistent; the reason there are three sets of numbers (first alignment, second alignment, and state delegate equivalent) reported from each precinct and then aggregated this year is that multiple candidates in the last cycle complained about apparent inconsistencies in the final results vs. there internal tallies (because voting is not private in caucuses, campaign precinct captains tend to report out results to the campaigns), and the DNC imposed transparency requirements to provide confidence in the final results.
- filoeleven 7y ago
  > The Iowa Democratic Party was quite clear that their explanation was that the numbers being reported through the app were inconsistent I guess that’s the part I don’t understand very well. Does that mean the number of delegates didn’t match what the math said they should based on the final voting counts? Or does it mean some of the folks who used the app to report the counts also called in with different numbers? Or something else? As of last night, that was unclear. I’m hoping that they do a whole post-mortem on what went wrong and how they resolved it.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > I guess that’s the part I don’t understand very well. Does that mean the number of delegates didn’t match what the math said they should based on the final voting counts? I'd don't know whether it's hard inconsistencies (e.g., delegate counts not right given second alignment totals) or just improbable combinations that call for manual review out of caution (e.g., second alignment numbers that are technically possible but improbable given the first alignment) or a mix.
    - scott_s 7y ago
      I think this is the first year that they are reporting the results of each round. My guess is that the round-to-round numbers didn't match expectations, and my guess-the-second is that more people leave between rounds than we realized.
      - dragonwriter 7y ago
        > I think this is the first year that they are reporting the results of each round. It was. > My guess is that the round-to-round numbers didn't match expectations, and my guess-the-second is that more people leave between rounds than we realized. They diagnosed the problem to the reporting functionality in the app not including all data in all reports, not unexpected results in the actual logged data.

lawnchair_larry 7y ago

From what I heard, it means that the volunteer captains are old people who don’t know how to download apps, and they preferred dialing a phone number.

Lendal 7y ago
Many of the people didn't know they were going to be required to have a certain app, and that's why they didn't download it beforehand. They were then told to rely on the phone call-in method, which failed. Many of the caucus sites don't have good enough cell reception to download an app at the last minute. Imagine yourself arriving at a location with poor cell reception, told to download someone else's unknown code onto your personal phone using a weak or nonexistent cellular data signal. Problematic to say the least. Finally, the next day the Internet calls you "old people" as a final slap in the face.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

dragonwriter 7y ago

The Iowa Democratic Party was quite clear that their explanation was that the numbers being reported through the app were inconsistent; the reason there are three sets of numbers (first alignment, second alignment, and state delegate equivalent) reported from each precinct and then aggregated this year is that multiple candidates in the last cycle complained about apparent inconsistencies in the final results vs. there internal tallies (because voting is not private in caucuses, campaign precinct captains tend to report out results to the campaigns), and the DNC imposed transparency requirements to provide confidence in the final results.

filoeleven 7y ago
> The Iowa Democratic Party was quite clear that their explanation was that the numbers being reported through the app were inconsistent I guess that’s the part I don’t understand very well. Does that mean the number of delegates didn’t match what the math said they should based on the final voting counts? Or does it mean some of the folks who used the app to report the counts also called in with different numbers? Or something else? As of last night, that was unclear. I’m hoping that they do a whole post-mortem on what went wrong and how they resolved it.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > I guess that’s the part I don’t understand very well. Does that mean the number of delegates didn’t match what the math said they should based on the final voting counts? I'd don't know whether it's hard inconsistencies (e.g., delegate counts not right given second alignment totals) or just improbable combinations that call for manual review out of caution (e.g., second alignment numbers that are technically possible but improbable given the first alignment) or a mix.
  - scott_s 7y ago
    I think this is the first year that they are reporting the results of each round. My guess is that the round-to-round numbers didn't match expectations, and my guess-the-second is that more people leave between rounds than we realized.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      > I think this is the first year that they are reporting the results of each round. It was. > My guess is that the round-to-round numbers didn't match expectations, and my guess-the-second is that more people leave between rounds than we realized. They diagnosed the problem to the reporting functionality in the app not including all data in all reports, not unexpected results in the actual logged data.