Iowa caucus-goers irked by Democrats' election meltdown: "I probably won't even do the next one"
Iowans who caucused Monday night just want their votes to be counted properly, according to CBS News' Dean Reynolds. Des Moines resident Will Walker called it "frustrating" that a coding error had thrown the first primary of election season into chaos, and said he was disillusioned by the process.
"I probably won't even do the next one, to be honest with you," Walker said.
He and his family agreed the mistake was embarrassing after the three of them took part in one of Iowa's biggest nights.
Iowa Democratic chairman Troy Price pushed back against critics who questioned the use of an app to finalize the results of the first 2020 caucus, while stating his "paramount concern is making sure these results are accurate."
"We have worked with cyber security experts, nationally renowned cyber security experts, to test this app and to do testing and security checks on this app," he said.
Nevada's Democratic Party announced they were scrapping plans to use the same app for their primary after it was widely blamed for Monday's caucus reporting issues. The company who made the app, Shadow, apologized in a statement that read "the underlying data and collection process was sound and accurate, but our process to transmit results was not."
The app was supposed to transmit voting data in real time. However, party leaders found several inconsistencies in vote tallies while caucus chairs reported problems downloading it to their phones. One county chair said the app had to be downloaded through a separate application and was not available in the app store, adding to confusion among caucus leaders.
Joe Biden's campaign had previously used the company Shadow, as did Pete Buttigieg, who walked away with a strong standing in Iowa once final tallies finally began coming in. Both campaigns said they had used it for communication services.
With nearly three quarters of Iowa precincts finally counted, Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders look to have walked away as the big winners of the first primary vote.