Who will win Iowa?

[malchior]

Oy. Thanks for all that extra information. Everyone is so focused on the results, I'm not actually seeing too much detail yet on the 'what went wrong". Much appreciated.

Though I will say the fact that they didn't get the app until Friday should have likely been a huge red flag.

Estimates are that they spend between 60K to 120K on developing the app but some of it was travel. To give you an idea what that means - a good app developer costs average $150/hr. billing rate. Even if all that money was spent on a programmer (it wasn't!) then they had 400 - 800 hours to develop and test the app. Just to level set I am a consultant and do these estimations fairly regularly. I'm being super generous to them. There is no way that the amount of money here actually resulted in that amount of work in reality. Anyway, they say it was developed over 2+ months. So 1-2 FTE for 10 weeks. This includes building the app, backend work for storage, testing, documentation creation, etc. To be fair, this is a very rough estimate but when I heard the time frame and money involved I was skeptical it is real because it is super low. Super, super, super low. Maybe they have a couple of interns/unpaid help but even then it feels like it wasn't a big scale operation.

[malchior]

Apparently it is Zeno's caucus now.

I like how they are dribbling these out in smaller and smaller portions. First 61%, then another 10%, now another 4%. At this rate, the final results will not be known even at the end of time.

[Defiant]

Whatever the final results show, Pete Buttigieg has made history in the Iowa caucuses.

The former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, on Monday night became the first openly gay candidate in American history to earn presidential primary delegates toward a major party's nomination process.

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story ... 667796002/

[Defiant]

The Onion: Speeding Democratic Campaign Buses Run Over 173 Iowans In Mad Dash To Get Fuck Out Of State

[Isgrimnur]

Apparently it is Zeno's caucus now.

I wonder what the Planck percentage is.

[malchior]

Good fucking lord. This could be pre-alignment versus post-alignment but the Bernie camp is losing its mind. Honest question - how does Deval Patrick have 500 votes and is beating Yang?

Edit: Update it was a mistake. THESE GUYS ARE BEYOND INCOMPETENT. *Days of delays* and they still got it wrong. They are lucky that the Republic happened to get murdered at the same time.

[Lagom Lite]

Can't tell if conspiracy, meddling or incompetence. But it sure is tomfoolery.

[Smoove_B]

We were promised a lack of malarkey, and yet here we are.

[Defiant]

If you wanted a lack of malarkey, you should have voted for Biden, you whipper snapper. Also, would you please stop snapping whippers?

[YellowKing]

The Iowa caucus has always rubbed me the wrong way, because I always got this self-important air from the whole thing, And I get it. If you live in Iowa that's probably the only thing in life you have to cling to. It's literally the only time you get to make the news for something other than a tornado.

So I would be lying if I said I didn't take some cruel joy in them screwing this up. I feel bad because I don't like to generalize entire states unless they're South Carolina.

[Isgrimnur]

I mean, you have to have something to hold over those uppity Dakotans.

[Kraken]

I like the folksy tradition of caucuses in the same way that I like New England town meetings -- as democracy that worked well when the country was smaller and simpler. I understand why IA wants to cling to that...but it should be a sideshow, not the kickoff.

[Lagom Lite]

I'm sorry but this is super fishy. Another district (Indianola 2) has been found with 0 votes to Warren and Sanders, but massive amount of votes to Deval Patrick and Tom Steyer - apparently the votes got switched in the reporting. And Buttigieg's brother-in-law designed the app used? And the company is called "Shadow"?

[Victoria Raverna]

I'm sorry but this is super fishy. Another district (Indianola 2) has been found with 0 votes to Warren and Sanders, but massive amount of votes to Deval Patrick and Tom Steyer - apparently the votes got switched in the reporting. And Buttigieg's brother-in-law designed the app used? And the company is called "Shadow"?

I think if the brother-in-law intentionally want to cheat the result, it'll not too obvious like this.

A better way to cheat is to slightly move the votes around so that his choice win, not by reducing votes for two front runners to 0.

[Defiant]

And Buttigieg's brother-in-law designed the app used?

Where did you get that? His brother in law is a homophobic pastor and landscaper.

[LawBeefaroni]

I'm sorry but this is super fishy. Another district (Indianola 2) has been found with 0 votes to Warren and Sanders, but massive amount of votes to Deval Patrick and Tom Steyer - apparently the votes got switched in the reporting. And Buttigieg's brother-in-law designed the app used? And the company is called "Shadow"?

Acronym.

“I don’t think they’re evil, but in their thirst to take over the world using a bunch of short-term donor money, they leveraged their political connections to get contracts that they didn’t have the expertise to fulfill,” one Democratic strategist told me.

[Lagom Lite]

And Buttigieg's brother-in-law designed the app used?

Where did you get that? His brother in law is a homophobic pastor and landscaper.

I was in error, it's not Pete's brother-in-law but a senior strategist at the Buttigieg campaign that is married to Shadow's owner.

https://apnews.com/5232ce5601996c1de440806ad30fa4fb

Shadow Inc. was launched by ACRONYM, a nonprofit corporation founded in 2017 by Tara McGowan, a political strategist who runs companies aimed at promoting Democratic candidates and priorities. McGowan, 34, is married to Michael Halle, a senior strategist for Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign, which records show has also paid Shadow Inc. $42,500 for software.

McGowan sought to distance herself from Shadow’s IowaReporterApp on Monday night, characterizing the app developer as an “independent” company. In a separate statement, an ACRONYM spokesman said the nonprofit organization is an investor in several companies, including Shadow, but was “eagerly awaiting more information from the Iowa Democratic Party with respect to what happened.”

But business and tax records show ACRONYM and Shadow are registered at the same Washington, D.C., street address, which belongs to a WeWork co-working location. Shadow CEO Gerard Niemira previously served as the chief operating officer and chief technology officer at ACRONYM, according to an online resume.

[Lagom Lite]

I'm sorry but this is super fishy. Another district (Indianola 2) has been found with 0 votes to Warren and Sanders, but massive amount of votes to Deval Patrick and Tom Steyer - apparently the votes got switched in the reporting. And Buttigieg's brother-in-law designed the app used? And the company is called "Shadow"?

I think if the brother-in-law intentionally want to cheat the result, it'll not too obvious like this.

A better way to cheat is to slightly move the votes around so that his choice win, not by reducing votes for two front runners to 0.

So the options are:

1. Iowa DNC are really just a bunch of nincompoops who didn't test their software beforehand
2. There is a really clumsy conspiracy involving the app which, once revealed, really only hurts the Buttigieg campaign
3. Russian hackers are sowing dissent by fudging the app to make it look like the above

I honestly don't know.

[malchior]

Iowa keeps getting worse. Iowa screwed up results from satellite caususes. Nate Cohn from the NY Times wonder how the "many, many, many errors in the results" would be fixed. Last night the NY Times had an estimate that said it was 98% certain that Buttigieg won the Iowa causus. Now it is a lean Bernie because they are assuming that Pete is winning the rural counties.

That said, might as well guess because no one knows the winner. It looks like they systematically got results wrong in Pete's favor and have essentially poisoned the start of the Democratic primary race. No idea how big a dose it is but you can't make this up. Everything that can go wrong with our nation continues to go wrong. However, where rubber meets the road (at the Convention!) the whole damn thing is a tie but no Sander supporter is going to believe it.

1. Iowa DNC are really just a bunch of nincompoops who didn't test their software beforehand
2. There is a really clumsy conspiracy involving the app which, once revealed, really only hurts the Buttigieg campaign
3. Russian hackers are sowing dissent by fudging the app to make it look like the above

I honestly don't know.

It won't be 2 because it would be too easy to find out. Too many eyes on this. It's almost certainly 1 but you can't discount 3 which is the rub here. If I was the person with pull there I'd be ordering an investigation of the commits to their code repository to understand how this happened.

[YellowKing]

It's fascinating that we're so polarized, even the poles are polarized.

[Isgrimnur]

It's fascinating that we're so polarized, even the poles are polarized.

I am not a member of any organized party — I am a Democrat.

[Defiant]

Supporters of President Donald Trump flooded a hotline used by Iowa precinct chairs to report Democratic caucus results after the telephone number was posted online, worsening delays in the statewide tally, a top state Democrat told party leaders on a conference call Wednesday night.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... ocrat-says

[LawBeefaroni]

Supporters of President Donald Trump flooded a hotline used by Iowa precinct chairs to report Democratic caucus results after the telephone number was posted online, worsening delays in the statewide tally, a top state Democrat told party leaders on a conference call Wednesday night.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... ocrat-says

In other words, an IDP security breach/fail. You don't post that number online.

Seat of the pants operation has bad results. No surprise.

[Isgrimnur]

The phone number became public after people posted photos of caucus paperwork that included the hotline number, one of the people on the call said.

[LawBeefaroni]

The phone number became public after people posted photos of caucus paperwork that included the hotline number, one of the people on the call said.

Same thing. Unless these were spy cam photos or something.

[Smoove_B]

Seat of the pants operation has bad results. No surprise.

Vice has a report on the app itself. Not my area, so others with coding knowledge would need to chime in.

"Honestly, the biggest thing is—I don’t want to throw it under the bus—but the app was clearly done by someone following a tutorial. It’s similar to projects I do with my mentees who are learning how to code," Rahjerdi said. "They started with a starter package and they just added things on top of it. I get deja vu from my classes because the code looks like someone Googled things like 'how to add authentication to React Native App' and followed the instructions," Rahjerdi said.

[hepcat]

Sadly, that's a LOT of apps these days. Especially mobile apps.

[Lagom Lite]

Bernie Sanders has declared victory in Iowa, stating that he won with 6,000 votes and 2,500 votes in the realignment. He also stated that SDEs do not actually impact the national delegate count out of Iowa, and they are therefore unimportant and the media has focused too much on them. "Where I come from, if you get six thousand more votes than any other candidate, you've won." He also said he and Mr Buttigieg will probably receive the same number of pledged delegates out of Iowa.

[LawBeefaroni]

"Where I come from, if you get six thousand more votes than any other candidate, you've won."

He doesn't come from the US?

[Defiant]

[Zarathud]

These are the same people who will complain about all the SDEs they’ve offended not being fair. The Democrats need someone who can get the win, not just the votes. Racking up another million votes in New York does nothing to win the Presidency.

[malchior]

Seat of the pants operation has bad results. No surprise.

Vice has a report on the app itself. Not my area, so others with coding knowledge would need to chime in.

"Honestly, the biggest thing is—I don’t want to throw it under the bus—but the app was clearly done by someone following a tutorial. It’s similar to projects I do with my mentees who are learning how to code," Rahjerdi said. "They started with a starter package and they just added things on top of it. I get deja vu from my classes because the code looks like someone Googled things like 'how to add authentication to React Native App' and followed the instructions," Rahjerdi said.

This all tracks because the amount of money spent on Shadow by IDP was ludicrously low. They probably threw an intern on it.

[Victoria Raverna]

Seat of the pants operation has bad results. No surprise.

Vice has a report on the app itself. Not my area, so others with coding knowledge would need to chime in.

"Honestly, the biggest thing is—I don’t want to throw it under the bus—but the app was clearly done by someone following a tutorial. It’s similar to projects I do with my mentees who are learning how to code," Rahjerdi said. "They started with a starter package and they just added things on top of it. I get deja vu from my classes because the code looks like someone Googled things like 'how to add authentication to React Native App' and followed the instructions," Rahjerdi said.

This all tracks because the amount of money spent on Shadow by IDP was ludicrously low. They probably threw an intern on it.

They should subcontracted it to India or some third world country software developers. An app and backend server for tallying result in a state with the population of Iowa is a very simple project.

If the salary of American workers are too expensive to develop an app like that cheaply then do it in a country with cheaper salary level.

[malchior]

Seat of the pants operation has bad results. No surprise.

Vice has a report on the app itself. Not my area, so others with coding knowledge would need to chime in.

"Honestly, the biggest thing is—I don’t want to throw it under the bus—but the app was clearly done by someone following a tutorial. It’s similar to projects I do with my mentees who are learning how to code," Rahjerdi said. "They started with a starter package and they just added things on top of it. I get deja vu from my classes because the code looks like someone Googled things like 'how to add authentication to React Native App' and followed the instructions," Rahjerdi said.

This all tracks because the amount of money spent on Shadow by IDP was ludicrously low. They probably threw an intern on it.

They should subcontracted it to India or some third world country software developers. An app and backend server for tallying result in a state with the population of Iowa is a very simple project.

If the salary of American workers are too expensive to develop an app like that cheaply then do it in a country with cheaper salary level.

Sure - the idea only suffers a fatal problem...it is supposed to protect an election in the United States.

[Victoria Raverna]

Seat of the pants operation has bad results. No surprise.

Vice has a report on the app itself. Not my area, so others with coding knowledge would need to chime in.

"Honestly, the biggest thing is—I don’t want to throw it under the bus—but the app was clearly done by someone following a tutorial. It’s similar to projects I do with my mentees who are learning how to code," Rahjerdi said. "They started with a starter package and they just added things on top of it. I get deja vu from my classes because the code looks like someone Googled things like 'how to add authentication to React Native App' and followed the instructions," Rahjerdi said.

This all tracks because the amount of money spent on Shadow by IDP was ludicrously low. They probably threw an intern on it.

They should subcontracted it to India or some third world country software developers. An app and backend server for tallying result in a state with the population of Iowa is a very simple project.

If the salary of American workers are too expensive to develop an app like that cheaply then do it in a country with cheaper salary level.

Sure - the idea only suffers a fatal problem...it is supposed to protect an election in the United States.

I thought is is so that you can have a faster result to show the public. You can and still need to verify the result with manual tally of the votes using paper report from each voting location. Shadow Inc's app proved that you can't trust any developer without testing the app and compare it to the manual count. So American developer or not, you still need to do the same verification.

So you use the app to get the unconfirmed result then you have the actual result a few days later that should match the unconfirmed result if the app is coded correctly and the humans that operate the apps are doing it correctly. If not match, you can compare and find out the cause and hopefully can correct it before doing it at the next state.

[Smoove_B]

You've conflated want and need. The rush to get results is ultimately forcing bad, bad decisions to be made. Is paper slower? Absolutely. Would paper voting be transparent, without a tech barrier and can it be audited easily? Yes.

[Victoria Raverna]

You've conflated want and need. The rush to get results is ultimately forcing bad, bad decisions to be made. Is paper slower? Absolutely. Would paper voting be transparent, without a tech barrier and can it be audited easily? Yes.

How did they do the voting in Iowa? They still do it using paper voting then count manually and report the result using app?

[Defiant]

Looks like they've finished counting, and we have a winner...















Kidding.

[El Guapo]

I was reminded the other day that in 2012 Romney was declared the winner of the Iowa caucuses, then a few weeks later they reversed and declared Santorum the winner instead.

So, maybe we should just have Iowa take an election or two off, while they get their shit together?

[LawBeefaroni]

I was reminded the other day that in 2012 Romney was declared the winner of the Iowa caucuses, then a few weeks later they reversed and declared Santorum the winner instead.

So, maybe we should just have Iowa take an election or two off, while they get their shit together?

Tuesday?


And yeah, Iowa is probably done with their vaulted pole position. Although it may be a moot point if we never have another presidential election after 2020.