Nevada Could Be the Iowa Caucus Fiasco Redux
Ashtyn Renee / Flickr
As new details emerge about what went wrong with the Iowa Democratic Party's
vote counting meltdown in its presidential caucuses, the Nevada State
Democratic Party is racing to replace the app that failed in Iowa with new
and untested online voting tools in its caucus on February 22-a scenario
suggesting some difficulties seen in Iowa may resurface.
Meanwhile, in Iowa, where Bernie Sanders' campaign has said it will seek a
partial "re-canvass" (recount) after the IDP announced that Pete Buttigieg
would probably receive 14 national convention delegates and Sanders would
receive 12 delegates, the IDP has said that it will not be looking at the
ballots (voter-signed presidential preference cards). Instead, the IDP will
examine the summary sheets of vote totals signed by the caucus chair and
campaign precinct captains, even though the New York Times has reported
inaccuracies on those worksheets. That discrepancy implies that questions
about the IDP's vote counting will linger.
In other words, as party-run contests in Iowa continue and are poised to
take the stage in Nevada, the riskiest, most controversial and possibly
least assuring aspects of these 2020 elections are coming from decisions
made by state party officials. These officials tend to be younger and more
confident than skeptical of digital technology, and have sided with their
vendors more than outside experts.
That state party role has not been recognized in the most detailed press
reports offering explanations or more conspiratorial reports casting blame
about Iowa's meltdown. Yet top party officials in both states have resisted
warnings from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) about the risks of
debuting new digital voting systems. Those warnings have come from the DNC
Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC), which oversees state delegate selection
plans, the DNC's technology staff, and an expert advisory board created by
the DNC staff.
The RBC's 2020 rules envisioned caucus states offering a remote
participation option to voters who could not be physically present at the
caucuses. But as the months progressed and the details of that system raised
reliability and security concerns, the RBC reversed course. In late August,
it rejected plans by Iowa and Nevada to offer voters a telephone
keypad-based voting option. At the time, the RBC also warned these two
states about using online voting systems.
However, Nevada and Iowa pressed ahead with retooling some of their digital
voting systems, saying that these would be used by party officials and
volunteers, not by voters. The states could push the edge of the envelope
because the RBC has limited jurisdiction over how state party-run contests
use technology.
"The Rules Committee jurisdiction has never involved counting the votes,
because most of the time it is done by state law" affecting government-run
party primaries, said Elaine Kamarck, an RBC member from Massachusetts and
presidential scholar who said the panel's main job is overseeing state plans
to allocate delegates to the Democratic National Convention. "It never
occurred to us to get into the business of [overseeing] vote counting."
Thus, tech-friendly state party officials, more so in Nevada than Iowa, had
a loophole of sorts and pressed on. The fact that state parties, not the
DNC, pay for their presidential caucuses strengthened their resolve. So,
too, did the months that they had spent developing the telephone voting
option (before the RBC killed it).
As reported in most detail in the Nevada Independent, Nevada now plans to
give every precinct caucus chair a party-programmed iPad that will import
the results from four days of early voting (at the start of each precinct
caucus), calculate the candidate rankings in two rounds of voting, and
electronically file the results. (Iowa's app failed to transmit these local
results and to compile state totals.)
After the Iowa meltdown, Nevada State Democratic Party chairman William
McCurdy II said in a statement, "We will not be employing the same app or
vendor used in the Iowa caucus." The Nevada Independent spoke to caucus
chairs being trained in the newest system only days before it will debut.
Those volunteers said that the party was describing the use of an iPad as
not the same as an app.
"In the [training] video, a party staffer tells volunteers that the new
mechanism 'is not an app' but should be thought of as 'a tool,'" the
Independent reported. "Asked by a volunteer how results would be transmitted
from one place to another, the staffer demurred. 'Those are all excellent
questions, and we're still working out some of the details around those so
I'll make sure that everyone has more information as we're able to share
it,' she said."
Late on Monday, February 10, four days before early voting is set to begin,
the Nevada state party updated campaigns about their latest plans, according
to the Independent. The party will be using party-provided iPads to check in
voters using preloaded county voter rolls (as PDF files). Voters will fill
out a paper presidential preference card, but also enter their information
on the iPad as a Google form "which will be accessed through a URL," the
Independent reported, citing a party memo. Thus a paper and electronic
record of their vote will be created.
The system is reliant on caucus chairs accessing Wi-Fi in 80 early voting
sites across the state. It was not clear from the Independent's report what
elements of this system would be used or modified for use in hundreds of
precinct caucuses on February 22. In Iowa's precinct caucuses, getting
online was an issue for several campaigns using sophisticated
turnout-tracking apps, because attendees in those locations were widely
using their phones and competing for the bandwidth.
The Nevada party was still recruiting precinct chairs for those caucuses,
according to people with ties to Joe Biden's campaign in New Hampshire. That
update suggests that there may be issues with using an unfamiliar system
while running the event.
Nevada party officials have not responded to Voting Booth's request to
comment.
Whether the DNC Rules Committee can step in and order Nevada to fine-tune
the vote counting technology to be used-as it affects how 2020 national
convention delegates are allocated-is an open question. Meanwhile, party
officials from other states with government-run presidential primaries are
watching and are frustrated.
"Just use paper ballots, count them by hand, and call in the results," said
an exasperated state vice-chair (a baby boomer) who said that she was
friends with McCurdy, but was angry with her younger "techie" peers. (Those
comments came before the latest details about Nevada's early voting system
were released.) The Iowa meltdown reminded her of the Obama White House's
rollout of the Obamacare website, where young staffers overlooked what could
go wrong when a system debuts.
Not a Stop-Bernie Conspiracy
What Iowa's meltdown and Nevada's continuing pursuit of untested digital
voting tools is not, however, is a stop-Bernie conspiracy from the DNC.
That allegation came from some progressives after the IDP app frustrated
precinct chairs (many could not log in) and system software failed to tally
results. Nor was it intentional sabotage because the CEO of the firm
(ACRONYM) that funded the app's developer (Shadow) is married to a Buttigieg
consultant, nor because of meddling by Buttigieg's wealthy donors, as others
alleged.
"The DNC was doing what Bernie wanted. They were not trying to get rid of
him," said the state party vice-chair. "Accusing [DNC Chairman] Tom Perez of
trying to get rid of Bernie Sanders is ridiculous. He has been trying to
appease Bernie since the beginning."
Those remarks refer to the DNC's post-2016 effort to heal the divisions
between centrists who supported Hillary Clinton and progressives who backed
Sanders. The DNC's Unity Reform Commission recommended, and the full DNC
adopted, many of Sanders' demands. The most high-profile was that so-called
superdelegates (mostly elected officials who comprise one-sixth of the
national convention delegates) will not get to vote on the first ballot-to
elevate voters over party leaders.
Another Sanders demand, which is relevant for what is unfolding in 2020's
party-run caucus and primary states, is greater transparency in releasing
the vote counts. In 2016, the IDP simply announced the delegate equivalents
to their state convention without any further evidence. At 2:30 a.m. on the
morning after 2016's caucuses, the party chair announced that Clinton had
won 699.57 "state delegate equivalents" while Sanders had won 695.49
equivalents.
Looking at 2020, the DNC and caucus state parties agreed to release the
number of participants, results from two rounds of voting, and delegate
allocations. That new transparency, in part, led Iowa and Nevada party
officials to look to digital tools to accelerate more intricate reporting
and statewide tallies.
Throughout 2019, party officials told the RBC that they were on track with
their new voting systems, even though there was no finished product for the
DNC's technology staff to review until well into the fall. When
cybersecurity exercises were finally held, they were done in academic
settings-not in a real election with more voting-system stresses and
unexpected snafus.
In other words, these state party officials were overly reliant on their
contractors, some of whom had roles in Barack Obama's and Hillary Clinton's
campaigns, and some of who had connections in Silicon Valley, who were
overpromising. That mistake is a rookie error in the world of election
administration. And given the existing climate of paranoia and mistrust, it
increases the odds that mishaps will undermine public faith in elections and
the democratic process.
"Vendors promise you the world. They say, 'Just try it.' That doesn't work
with [career] election officials," said John Lindback, the former state
election director in Alaska and Oregon, who was worried about all of 2020's
party-run presidential nominating contests-continuing with Nevada and
several other states.
"They're setting themselves up for some issues," he said.
Steven Rosenfeld is the editor and chief correspondent of Voting Booth, a
project of the Independent Media Institute. He has reported for National
Public Radio, Marketplace, and Christian Science Monitor Radio, as well as a
wide range of progressive publications including Salon, AlterNet, the
American Prospect, and many others.
This article was produced by Voting Booth, a project of the Independent
Media Institute.
