Hawkeye black eye: Iowa Dems admit ‘this hurts’
Red-faced Iowa Democrats scrambled to defend and protect their first-in-the-nation presidential election status after the caucus system suffered a monumental meltdown that left candidates and voters without an official winner nearly 24 hours after Democrats first cast their votes.
“This hurts,” said Kelly Winfrey, an assistant communications professor at Iowa State University who took part in her caucus in Ames County, Iowa.
“It’s not a good look for the Iowa Democratic Party to have to take so much time just to get accurate results reported,” she said.
Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Troy Price blamed a new reporting app funded by former Hillary Clinton operative Tara McGowan for the breakdown. The technology presented a “stumbling block,” in reporting the caucus results, but Price said the data wasn’t tampered with.
“The results were unacceptable, and as chair of the party, I apologize deeply,” said Price, who revealed partial caucus results Tuesday evening after dodging media requests all day.
“The one thing I want you to know is that this data is accurate,” he said. “We want Iowans to be confident in the results and in the process.”
Officials from the company that created the app, called Shadow, Inc, pledged to do better in the future. The Democratic Party spent $60,000 to buy the technology, according to campaign finance records.
Many Democrats blamed Price and the state Democratic party — not the new app — for failing to provide functioning software and failing to have enough workers to back up the phone lines when technology broke down.
Sue Body, the precinct secretary in Clarke County, said her county chair didn’t bother with the app and decided to report everything by phone. The chair had to wait a long time as the telephone rang and rang without answer, and when a Democratic Party worker did pick up, she waited a long time on hold before she could share the results.
“The people of Iowa are just as frustrated as the rest of the country,” said Body. “My frustration is more with the Iowa Democratic Party who didn’t troubleshoot this thing well enough.”
Price said Tuesday that the party will conduct a “thorough, transparent and independent examination” of what caused the delays. He declined to address whether Iowa will remain the home of the first in the nation contest, but several other Iowa Democrats appeared doubtful.
“If it’s not over, then it’s going to be on life support,” said Tim Hagle, an associate professor of political science at the University of Iowa.
“The fact is Iowa already faces a lot of pushback already because people argue it isn’t accessible for a lot of people and isn’t diverse enough. The fact that the reporting fell through so spectacularly doesn’t help things,” said Hagle.
from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2S0cCt2
Post a Comment