6 ms·

Iowa Democrats Should Have Known Better Than to Use an App

54 points by DarkContinent 7y ago

m_ke 7y ago
Based on the linkedin profiles of people who work at the company that made this app it doesn't look like there was a single senior engineer involved. EDIT: the CTO actually has a lot of experience, I didn't see her first two positions at SRI and Google because linkedin folded it.
- dimgl 7y ago
  The CTO, Krista Davis, has had staff backend engineer positions. However yes the team looks fairly inexperienced.
  - Benjammer 7y ago
    >has had staff backend engineer positions Kind of slow-playing her 8yrs at the Googster with this description, aren't we? I also think U-dub is nothing to scoff at for CS schools, if you value that sort of thing. All this being said, her experience doesn't exactly scream "Lead architect and only senior engineer on project building critical democracy-infrastructure software to enable the base mechanisms of our entire nation."
    - dimgl 7y ago
      Yeah you're totally right. I missed that section of her profile.
  - m_ke 7y ago
    Oh, I missed her google experience because it was folded over.
- vsareto 7y ago
  I hope no one comes away from this thinking the engineers were at fault
  - m_ke 7y ago
    Yeah I didn't mean to blame them either. It falls on the DNC and the management at this company.
    - brutal_chaos_ 7y ago
      Iowa Democratic Party (IDP), not the DNC.
      - m_ke 7y ago
        Iowa wasn't the only state that planned on using this app. The DNC should have a process in place to validate whatever system is used to elect their candidate.
  - Benjammer 7y ago
    Unfortunately, you can often point out failures in software leadership by pointing out collective attributes of the team being led. In a void, I don't think "inexperienced" is describing a fault of an engineer, it's an attribute that describes the fault of their leadership. It's a messy situation, I don't think it's black and white as to who's "fault" any of this is.
  - designcode 7y ago
    ... they can't just deflect blame either. I'm sure they'd be happy to take credit for any success. Anyone who had direct control over the product is at fault.
    - asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
      I would not blame an engineer whose experience and training was inadequate to the task unless they participated in the misrepresentation of the app as ready for prime time. The blame lies with the leadership.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - 7y ago
- trianglem 7y ago
  Krista Davis, if you know anything about her this was expected.
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    For those who don't, is there anything you'd care to share?
    - Fjolsvith 7y ago
      She was a Clinton campaign veteran. [1] So were a few others at Shadow, Inc. 1. https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-02-04/clinton-campaign-vets-behind-2020-iowa-caucus-app-snafu https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-02-04...
glial 7y ago
Software and voting don't mix well. We should have collectively realized this by now.
- SigmundA 7y ago
  Software runs our cars, planes, spacecraft and banks. I think we could make it work for voting if we want to put the effort into it.
  - colejohnson66 7y ago
    There’s so many things wrong with digital voting. The biggest being that it’s so easy to hack compared to analog (paper) voting. You want to change an election, just hack the machine. With paper, you need a grand conspiracy.
    - dylan-m 7y ago
      More than that, you need a grand conspiracy that is so obscure third party observers can't see it happening. Relatively easy with software, because software is obscure almost by definition. Difficult with something tactile like paper ballots. (Or you need a country where those third party observers are already powerless, but that's beside the point).
    - otachack 7y ago
      It's easy to hack analog as well if the administration is in on it.
      - iso947 7y ago
        Sure with gerrymandering. I’ve been involved in two major elections in the last 12 months in the uk, one as a candidate. I couldn’t think of any way of significantly changing the votes without another party finding out. Can’t register fake people in bulk, can’t registrr normally non voting people for postal votes without them finding out, can’t vote as multiple people without a lot of co conspirators and without at least some finding out they’d already voted, can’t introduce fake ballots without many conspirators, can’t change ballots or lose ballots
PopePompus 7y ago
The article mentions the paper trail backup. Good luck with that. Given our experience with Florida in the 2000 presidential election, who would be willing to bet that the paper ballot results would agree with the head count results? I was at one of the caucuses - there were two paper ballot rounds and three head counts (done by people counting themselves, supervised by staffers for the various candidates). 626 people attended my caucus. I'm sure none of them were in the bathroom during one of the three head counts over the course of a couple hours; that just couldn't happen. The paper ballots required attendees to fill in the full name of their preferred candidate (plus a second choice), as well as their own name and address. Considering the fact that people cannot be counted on to fill in a circle or punch a hole in a piece of paper with 100% accuracy, how likely is it that multiple lines of text can be written on a card correctly and legibly?. If they actually fall back on the paper ballots, I predict all hope of a clear result will be lost.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
tamaharbor 7y ago
I am still more concerned with the illegal and dead people vote.
nwvg_7257 7y ago
Why on earth did they make an app which they didn't even have time to get approved? This could have been done easily with a website. Honestly, they could have used Google Forms. A secure, off the shelf, and much cheaper option would have be to setup a G Suite workplace, mail security tokens to the caucus leaders, have them make accounts on a computer, and submit the results through a form.
- sky_rw 7y ago
  You can't bill 10's of thousands of dollars to a donation funded political organization if you do that.
  - TylerE 7y ago
    Why not? "IT Services and Support" The real issue with that approach would probably be a requirement to have a computer on site.
    - sky_rw 7y ago
      Ironically the real issues is that they probably weren't able to bill enough.
- lalabert 7y ago
  Errrr exactly ... and I’d love to see the emails from folks going ... don’t do this!
briandear 7y ago
Why don’t they have an actual primary instead of that quaint barndance of a caucus? Every state should have a primary on the same day instead of giving states like Iowa and New Hampshire outsized influence on the media narrative.
HarryHirsch 7y ago
Why do you need anything beyond a stack of Excel spreadsheets? The polling locations call in the tally to the town, the town calls in results to the county, and the county forwards the results to the state, to be certified. Like this you get the final result two hours after polls close. Everything else is needless complexity.
dmalvarado 7y ago
Iowa's caucus has been more or less working fine since it started in 1972. What was the value add of introducing an app? Knowing results sooner? Certainly not simplicity or reliability. I'm reminded of an xkcd comic (I think) where the fight to eradicate some disease is essentially making stead,y predictable progress, and a room full of developers is ready to chuck the whole process in favor of app-ification. This is that.
planetzero 7y ago
..Not if you want to commit election fraud.

54 points by DarkContinent 7y ago

m_ke 7y ago

Based on the linkedin profiles of people who work at the company that made this app it doesn't look like there was a single senior engineer involved. EDIT: the CTO actually has a lot of experience, I didn't see her first two positions at SRI and Google because linkedin folded it.

dimgl 7y ago
The CTO, Krista Davis, has had staff backend engineer positions. However yes the team looks fairly inexperienced.
- Benjammer 7y ago
  >has had staff backend engineer positions Kind of slow-playing her 8yrs at the Googster with this description, aren't we? I also think U-dub is nothing to scoff at for CS schools, if you value that sort of thing. All this being said, her experience doesn't exactly scream "Lead architect and only senior engineer on project building critical democracy-infrastructure software to enable the base mechanisms of our entire nation."
  - dimgl 7y ago
    Yeah you're totally right. I missed that section of her profile.
- m_ke 7y ago
  Oh, I missed her google experience because it was folded over.
vsareto 7y ago
I hope no one comes away from this thinking the engineers were at fault
- m_ke 7y ago
  Yeah I didn't mean to blame them either. It falls on the DNC and the management at this company.
  - brutal_chaos_ 7y ago
    Iowa Democratic Party (IDP), not the DNC.
    - m_ke 7y ago
      Iowa wasn't the only state that planned on using this app. The DNC should have a process in place to validate whatever system is used to elect their candidate.
- Benjammer 7y ago
  Unfortunately, you can often point out failures in software leadership by pointing out collective attributes of the team being led. In a void, I don't think "inexperienced" is describing a fault of an engineer, it's an attribute that describes the fault of their leadership. It's a messy situation, I don't think it's black and white as to who's "fault" any of this is.
- designcode 7y ago
  ... they can't just deflect blame either. I'm sure they'd be happy to take credit for any success. Anyone who had direct control over the product is at fault.
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
    I would not blame an engineer whose experience and training was inadequate to the task unless they participated in the misrepresentation of the app as ready for prime time. The blame lies with the leadership.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- 7y ago
trianglem 7y ago
Krista Davis, if you know anything about her this was expected.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  For those who don't, is there anything you'd care to share?
  - Fjolsvith 7y ago
    She was a Clinton campaign veteran. [1] So were a few others at Shadow, Inc. 1. https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-02-04/clinton-campaign-vets-behind-2020-iowa-caucus-app-snafu https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-02-04...

glial 7y ago

Software and voting don't mix well. We should have collectively realized this by now.

SigmundA 7y ago
Software runs our cars, planes, spacecraft and banks. I think we could make it work for voting if we want to put the effort into it.
- colejohnson66 7y ago
  There’s so many things wrong with digital voting. The biggest being that it’s so easy to hack compared to analog (paper) voting. You want to change an election, just hack the machine. With paper, you need a grand conspiracy.
  - dylan-m 7y ago
    More than that, you need a grand conspiracy that is so obscure third party observers can't see it happening. Relatively easy with software, because software is obscure almost by definition. Difficult with something tactile like paper ballots. (Or you need a country where those third party observers are already powerless, but that's beside the point).
  - otachack 7y ago
    It's easy to hack analog as well if the administration is in on it.
    - iso947 7y ago
      Sure with gerrymandering. I’ve been involved in two major elections in the last 12 months in the uk, one as a candidate. I couldn’t think of any way of significantly changing the votes without another party finding out. Can’t register fake people in bulk, can’t registrr normally non voting people for postal votes without them finding out, can’t vote as multiple people without a lot of co conspirators and without at least some finding out they’d already voted, can’t introduce fake ballots without many conspirators, can’t change ballots or lose ballots

PopePompus 7y ago

The article mentions the paper trail backup. Good luck with that. Given our experience with Florida in the 2000 presidential election, who would be willing to bet that the paper ballot results would agree with the head count results? I was at one of the caucuses - there were two paper ballot rounds and three head counts (done by people counting themselves, supervised by staffers for the various candidates). 626 people attended my caucus. I'm sure none of them were in the bathroom during one of the three head counts over the course of a couple hours; that just couldn't happen. The paper ballots required attendees to fill in the full name of their preferred candidate (plus a second choice), as well as their own name and address. Considering the fact that people cannot be counted on to fill in a circle or punch a hole in a piece of paper with 100% accuracy, how likely is it that multiple lines of text can be written on a card correctly and legibly?. If they actually fall back on the paper ballots, I predict all hope of a clear result will be lost.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

tamaharbor 7y ago

I am still more concerned with the illegal and dead people vote.

nwvg_7257 7y ago

Why on earth did they make an app which they didn't even have time to get approved? This could have been done easily with a website. Honestly, they could have used Google Forms. A secure, off the shelf, and much cheaper option would have be to setup a G Suite workplace, mail security tokens to the caucus leaders, have them make accounts on a computer, and submit the results through a form.

sky_rw 7y ago
You can't bill 10's of thousands of dollars to a donation funded political organization if you do that.
- TylerE 7y ago
  Why not? "IT Services and Support" The real issue with that approach would probably be a requirement to have a computer on site.
  - sky_rw 7y ago
    Ironically the real issues is that they probably weren't able to bill enough.
lalabert 7y ago
Errrr exactly ... and I’d love to see the emails from folks going ... don’t do this!

briandear 7y ago

Why don’t they have an actual primary instead of that quaint barndance of a caucus? Every state should have a primary on the same day instead of giving states like Iowa and New Hampshire outsized influence on the media narrative.

HarryHirsch 7y ago

Why do you need anything beyond a stack of Excel spreadsheets? The polling locations call in the tally to the town, the town calls in results to the county, and the county forwards the results to the state, to be certified. Like this you get the final result two hours after polls close. Everything else is needless complexity.

dmalvarado 7y ago

Iowa's caucus has been more or less working fine since it started in 1972. What was the value add of introducing an app? Knowing results sooner? Certainly not simplicity or reliability. I'm reminded of an xkcd comic (I think) where the fight to eradicate some disease is essentially making stead,y predictable progress, and a room full of developers is ready to chuck the whole process in favor of app-ification. This is that.

planetzero 7y ago

..Not if you want to commit election fraud.