The app was quickly put together in the past two months and was not properly tested at a statewide scale, according to people briefed on the matter.
DES MOINES — The app that the Iowa Democratic Party commissioned to tabulate and report results from the caucuses on Monday was not properly tested at a statewide scale, said people who were briefed on the app by the state party.
It was quickly put together in just the past two months, said the people, some of whom asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
And the party decided to use the app only after another proposal for reporting votes — which entailed having caucus participants call in their votes over the phone — was abandoned, on the advice of Democratic National Committee officials, according to David Jefferson, a board member of Verified Voting, a nonpartisan election integrity organization.
Late Monday night, that chain of events came to a head when results from the Iowa caucuses were significantly delayed. While vote counts in the past have typically been reported earlier in the evening, the Iowa Democratic Party held a conference call with representatives from each campaign at around 10:30 p.m. Eastern time to tell them that roughly 35 percent of precincts had reported, but that it would provide no other details about the results.
A spokeswoman for the state party issued a statement late Monday denying that the delays were the result of the new app’s failure.
“We found inconsistencies in the reporting of three sets of results,” said Mandy McClure, the spokeswoman. She added that this was “simply a reporting issue, the app did not go down and this is not a hack or an intrusion.”
