https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/05/us/politics/iowa-caucus-problems.html

“Real” Americans.

«Besides an untested, buggy smartphone app that was used for the first time, a backup hotline number for caucus organizers to call in results was flooded with nuisance calls after the number was disseminated on social media, party leaders said.

“All the Trump people from around the country started calling and tearing everybody a new one,” Ken Sager, the Iowa Democratic Party treasurer, told members of the party’s central committee on the 1 hour 20 minute call.

There were 85 phone lines to take calls at the party headquarters in Des Moines, said Kevin Geiken, the party’s executive director. But caucus chairs faced long wait times “because of the excessive calls we were getting” and because the legitimate calls to report results each took about five minutes, twice as long as in a dry run.»

https://twitter.com/mikefarb1/status/1224973677768384512?s=20

Somebody is really, really mad, and they have a good point:

MikeFarb (@mikefarb1) Tweeted:
Ron Wydens team was concerned enough to reach out to them 3 times to no avail! Really? Now Nevada next up to use this App has announced they will seek out another App to use. They are going to find, test, train, roll out and use this in a couple of weeks? Fantastic.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/02/04/my-chaotic-infuriating-night-running-an-iowa-caucus/

Seriously, if Gramma can’t use the software, you really need a viable alternative.

Same for church websites, btw.

«You had to fill out a survey, which then got you a link, and then you had to download a different app, and enter in a code from your email, and then you would get the real app. This was meant to keep everything secure. But we have caucus chairs who need their grandkids to program their DVRs, and the training for the caucus chairs hadn’t included any guidance. The party didn’t really roll out the app so much as drop it on the doorstep.»

https://www.postandcourier.com/politics/upstate-gop-leaders-plotting-to-impact-sc-democratic-primary-by/article_f1e7abd2-4788-11ea-aa9f-33a1d262994c.html

CLOSE THE PRIMARIES.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/how-trolls-locked-my-twitter-account-for-10-days-and-welp

So. Now that political season is upon us full force, I have decided that I’m going to start reporting Twitter (and other?) accounts that seem to me to just be divisive trolls or bots. If your posts are all cute animal videos and you show up with a value-free tweet like “moderates can’t support Bernie” designed to elicit engagement, I’m reporting you as spam, fake account.

I guess the defense will be to try to get ME suspended or locked out or something. Or maybe Twitter will decide I’M a bot. Oh well. I’ll be over on my blog, posting away.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/it-kind-of-failed-us-with-eyes-of-the-world-on-iowa-another-hiccup-in-american-democracy/2020/02/04/629fc5fe-4706-11ea-bc78-8a18f7afcee7_story.html

Ilhan Omar being a typical congresscritter:

«Suspicion was deepened by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) — a backer of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) — who amplified a tweet early Tuesday suggesting that the app’s developer was tied to former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg’s campaign.»

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/it-kind-of-failed-us-with-eyes-of-the-world-on-iowa-another-hiccup-in-american-democracy/2020/02/04/629fc5fe-4706-11ea-bc78-8a18f7afcee7_story.html

Role-playing? Ok, but that’s not anything like a real simulation.

«Iowa Democrats took great pains to prevent this very situation. A breakdown in reporting on the mobile app was among the scenarios used in a role-play run in Des Moines last fall by the Defending Digital Democracy Project at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. The state party, along with its Republican counterpart, partnered with the project’s leaders for a simulation in November. They were joined by security experts as well as developers behind the website and mobile app used by the parties to publicize caucus details and report returns.

Details of a problem would arrive via email, bringing news, for example, of difficulty with the app or of false tweets claiming that the caucuses began at a different time. Democrats used the simulation to develop possible plans for caucus night, including contingencies such as bringing in the Department of Homeland Security and contacting executives at Twitter.»

At least they knew they needed a paper trail, so yay that.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/03/us/politics/iowa-caucus-app.html

Queueing theory, anyone?

«there were concerns that the app would malfunction in areas with poor connectivity, or because of high bandwidth use, such as when many people tried to use it at the same time.

….

Jerry Depew, the Democratic county chairman from Pocahontas County, said that the report line and the help line were the same phone number.

“I had not expected it to be busy at 8 p.m.,” he said, when he tried to call in results from his precinct. “But if caucus chairs were calling for help at the same time that easy caucuses were trying to report results, the phones could have been overloaded.”»

«“The underlying data and paper trail is sound,” she continued, “and will simply take time to further report the results.”»

PAPER TRAIL!

Get rid of those all-electronic things and stop getting bedazzled by technology!

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/iowa-caucus-app-shadow_n_5e390191c5b687dacc722824

Hey, @robillard, @aterkel, @mtredden, @huffpostpol, “enterprise” software developer here. $60,000 sounds like chump change for a piece of software like this (and a system that will require flawless, peak performance on exactly one night). If that’s truly what was paid, you might want to consider how responsible the customer was for going with what might have been the lowest estimate and fastest-promised timeline.

«Iowa Democratic Party paid Shadow, a tech company that joined with ACRONYM last year, more than $60,000 for “website development” over two installments in November and December of last year.»

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-03/climate-models-are-running-red-hot-and-scientists-don-t-know-why

73° (normally 42°) F outside my office in central North Carolina today (Feb 3, 2020), but, sure, let’s fix the models. THEY must be wrong.