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The IDP intended the app to be used the primary method of gathering and transmitting results, but apparently failed to impress this upon the people actually working with the app. (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Last night, we watched as the Iowa caucuses slowly unfolded and ultimately collapsed in real-time. Today, my little corner of the internet is abuzz with righteous anger and, in some cases, conspiracy theories. One thing is certain: we are all shocked at the sheer incompetence displayed by the Iowa Democratic Party and all those involved in the development of the app that was supposed to simplify and expedite the process.
According to a New York Times report, the app had only been under consideration for state-wide use for a couple of months. As more stories come out, a picture starts to form showing that a series of decisions and mistakes were made that led us here. By all accounts, it seems that users were unclear as to the app's purpose. The IDP intended the app to be used the primary method of gathering and transmitting results, but apparently failed to impress this upon the people actually working with the app.
Many users did not even get to the point of attempting to use the app, in part because of requirements related to the installation process that would cause the average use to skip using an app, especially if they believe they don't have to. The average user is not going to bypass their phone's permissions and sideload an app that they believe is simply a backup method to what they're putting on paper and calling in. Unsurprisingly, users were also not required to be trained on the app before the caucuses, and based on the information currently available it appears no significant end-user testing was performed. One indication of the failure to communicate basic information about the app is people like Pete Buttigieg's comms director tweeting out pictures that contained PIN numbers that would allow one to access the app if they were able to get it on their phone.
Once it became clear the app was not working, users turned to the usual method of calling in their results. Troy Price, the chairman of the state party previously stated that there would be multiple redundancies in place and that he was "confident" in their contingency planning. What we actually saw was an abject failure of planning. This backup method was an embarrassment. One precinct secretary was on hold with the party's hotline for over an hour, and then had his call disconnected by the person on the other end live on CNN. Des Moines County Democratic Chair Tom Courtney described similar scenes across his county, where caucus organizers attempted to call in their results to no avail. It seems they were unprepared for the amount of calls they were swamped with after the app's failure.
As another backup method, this was the first time Iowa instituted a paper trail, paper ballots were to be returned to the caucus chair in order to be eligible to be counted in the event of a recount. But it appears that some caucus chairs were not even aware that the paper ballots would be returned to them, again likely in part due to a failure in training.
It's tempting to blame a general reliance on tech or jump to conspiracy theories, and in this case it's somewhat understandable. According to FEC filings, the Biden and Buttigieg 2020 campaigns have both paid the company who made the app, Shadow Inc., though it's unclear for what. It's also emerged that many of the people involved in the app's development were previous Hillary for America employees in various technology roles. Screenshots of the employee's LinkedIn profiles began circulating on twitter not long after it became clear that something was amiss.
But I think there is a simpler explanation here. Anyone who has worked at a badly managed software company or on a poorly run team on a tight deadline is very familiar with this situation. Based on the employment histories of those involved, it appears the revolving door between campaigns and the private sector, as well as the symbiotic relationships between former campaign workers and their professional political network is likely to blame. It's not difficult to imagine technologists failing up through campaigns and using their connections to be awarded these contracts once they enter the private sector, leading to a situation where no one involved in the decision making process has worked at this scale.
What you get from this is a group of people who have no idea what they are doing, being responsible for the integrity of our electoral process. From the actions of those who decided Shadow Inc. was the right company for this job, to those along every step of the way who neglected basic development practices, a cascading set of failures led us here. This is not only a failure in the planning, development, testing, and deployment of this app, but in the creation of backup methods, to the point where the electoral process is compromised. To me this doesn't seem necessarily or purposely malicious, it seems more like incompetence and negligence.
This morning, the Iowa Democratic Party released a statement stating that their data is sound and confirming that there were no cyber security issues. It seems that while most people were focused on the looming threat of Russian election interference, much more common and less nefarious villains entered the scene: executives, product managers, developers, and party officials who did not know what they were doing. The statement conveniently does not mention that their data is incomplete, due to all the issues mentioned above.
The statement goes on to describe the issue in this way: "We have determined that this was due to a coding issue in the reporting system. This issue was identified and fixed. The application's reporting issue did not impact the ability of precinct chairs to report data accurately."
A lot of what we're thinking around this situation is speculative due to the amount of information that's available to us. But there are many questions to be asked. Who decided Shadow Inc. was capable of designing and deploying this application? What were the Biden and Buttigieg campaigns paying for when they sent thousands of dollars to Shadow Inc.? Who decided it wasn't necessary to train the users, or to even relay to the users of the purpose of the app? Who was responsible for failure of the backup methods? Are we to believe that the issue that was identified and fixed was deployed last night, and that users again went through the process of sideloading an updated version of the app? As we go into the Nevada caucuses where the app will also be used, should we trust the people responsible for all these issues to be competent enough to fix them in time?
We deserve answers. Personally, I don't feel confident that every process failure that we've seen here can be corrected in the short amount of time before Nevada. Ideally, external auditors would get involved to figure out and document what happened and give us the answers we need. We can't settle for depending on the people who got us into this mess. If they won't give us the transparency we deserve, we must demand it.
Update: Although initial reports indicated the same app would be used in Nevada, the Nevada Democratic Party has since released a statement vowing not to use it.
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Last night, we watched as the Iowa caucuses slowly unfolded and ultimately collapsed in real-time. Today, my little corner of the internet is abuzz with righteous anger and, in some cases, conspiracy theories. One thing is certain: we are all shocked at the sheer incompetence displayed by the Iowa Democratic Party and all those involved in the development of the app that was supposed to simplify and expedite the process.
According to a New York Times report, the app had only been under consideration for state-wide use for a couple of months. As more stories come out, a picture starts to form showing that a series of decisions and mistakes were made that led us here. By all accounts, it seems that users were unclear as to the app's purpose. The IDP intended the app to be used the primary method of gathering and transmitting results, but apparently failed to impress this upon the people actually working with the app.
Many users did not even get to the point of attempting to use the app, in part because of requirements related to the installation process that would cause the average use to skip using an app, especially if they believe they don't have to. The average user is not going to bypass their phone's permissions and sideload an app that they believe is simply a backup method to what they're putting on paper and calling in. Unsurprisingly, users were also not required to be trained on the app before the caucuses, and based on the information currently available it appears no significant end-user testing was performed. One indication of the failure to communicate basic information about the app is people like Pete Buttigieg's comms director tweeting out pictures that contained PIN numbers that would allow one to access the app if they were able to get it on their phone.
Once it became clear the app was not working, users turned to the usual method of calling in their results. Troy Price, the chairman of the state party previously stated that there would be multiple redundancies in place and that he was "confident" in their contingency planning. What we actually saw was an abject failure of planning. This backup method was an embarrassment. One precinct secretary was on hold with the party's hotline for over an hour, and then had his call disconnected by the person on the other end live on CNN. Des Moines County Democratic Chair Tom Courtney described similar scenes across his county, where caucus organizers attempted to call in their results to no avail. It seems they were unprepared for the amount of calls they were swamped with after the app's failure.
As another backup method, this was the first time Iowa instituted a paper trail, paper ballots were to be returned to the caucus chair in order to be eligible to be counted in the event of a recount. But it appears that some caucus chairs were not even aware that the paper ballots would be returned to them, again likely in part due to a failure in training.
It's tempting to blame a general reliance on tech or jump to conspiracy theories, and in this case it's somewhat understandable. According to FEC filings, the Biden and Buttigieg 2020 campaigns have both paid the company who made the app, Shadow Inc., though it's unclear for what. It's also emerged that many of the people involved in the app's development were previous Hillary for America employees in various technology roles. Screenshots of the employee's LinkedIn profiles began circulating on twitter not long after it became clear that something was amiss.
But I think there is a simpler explanation here. Anyone who has worked at a badly managed software company or on a poorly run team on a tight deadline is very familiar with this situation. Based on the employment histories of those involved, it appears the revolving door between campaigns and the private sector, as well as the symbiotic relationships between former campaign workers and their professional political network is likely to blame. It's not difficult to imagine technologists failing up through campaigns and using their connections to be awarded these contracts once they enter the private sector, leading to a situation where no one involved in the decision making process has worked at this scale.
What you get from this is a group of people who have no idea what they are doing, being responsible for the integrity of our electoral process. From the actions of those who decided Shadow Inc. was the right company for this job, to those along every step of the way who neglected basic development practices, a cascading set of failures led us here. This is not only a failure in the planning, development, testing, and deployment of this app, but in the creation of backup methods, to the point where the electoral process is compromised. To me this doesn't seem necessarily or purposely malicious, it seems more like incompetence and negligence.
This morning, the Iowa Democratic Party released a statement stating that their data is sound and confirming that there were no cyber security issues. It seems that while most people were focused on the looming threat of Russian election interference, much more common and less nefarious villains entered the scene: executives, product managers, developers, and party officials who did not know what they were doing. The statement conveniently does not mention that their data is incomplete, due to all the issues mentioned above.
The statement goes on to describe the issue in this way: "We have determined that this was due to a coding issue in the reporting system. This issue was identified and fixed. The application's reporting issue did not impact the ability of precinct chairs to report data accurately."
A lot of what we're thinking around this situation is speculative due to the amount of information that's available to us. But there are many questions to be asked. Who decided Shadow Inc. was capable of designing and deploying this application? What were the Biden and Buttigieg campaigns paying for when they sent thousands of dollars to Shadow Inc.? Who decided it wasn't necessary to train the users, or to even relay to the users of the purpose of the app? Who was responsible for failure of the backup methods? Are we to believe that the issue that was identified and fixed was deployed last night, and that users again went through the process of sideloading an updated version of the app? As we go into the Nevada caucuses where the app will also be used, should we trust the people responsible for all these issues to be competent enough to fix them in time?
We deserve answers. Personally, I don't feel confident that every process failure that we've seen here can be corrected in the short amount of time before Nevada. Ideally, external auditors would get involved to figure out and document what happened and give us the answers we need. We can't settle for depending on the people who got us into this mess. If they won't give us the transparency we deserve, we must demand it.
Update: Although initial reports indicated the same app would be used in Nevada, the Nevada Democratic Party has since released a statement vowing not to use it.
Last night, we watched as the Iowa caucuses slowly unfolded and ultimately collapsed in real-time. Today, my little corner of the internet is abuzz with righteous anger and, in some cases, conspiracy theories. One thing is certain: we are all shocked at the sheer incompetence displayed by the Iowa Democratic Party and all those involved in the development of the app that was supposed to simplify and expedite the process.
According to a New York Times report, the app had only been under consideration for state-wide use for a couple of months. As more stories come out, a picture starts to form showing that a series of decisions and mistakes were made that led us here. By all accounts, it seems that users were unclear as to the app's purpose. The IDP intended the app to be used the primary method of gathering and transmitting results, but apparently failed to impress this upon the people actually working with the app.
Many users did not even get to the point of attempting to use the app, in part because of requirements related to the installation process that would cause the average use to skip using an app, especially if they believe they don't have to. The average user is not going to bypass their phone's permissions and sideload an app that they believe is simply a backup method to what they're putting on paper and calling in. Unsurprisingly, users were also not required to be trained on the app before the caucuses, and based on the information currently available it appears no significant end-user testing was performed. One indication of the failure to communicate basic information about the app is people like Pete Buttigieg's comms director tweeting out pictures that contained PIN numbers that would allow one to access the app if they were able to get it on their phone.
Once it became clear the app was not working, users turned to the usual method of calling in their results. Troy Price, the chairman of the state party previously stated that there would be multiple redundancies in place and that he was "confident" in their contingency planning. What we actually saw was an abject failure of planning. This backup method was an embarrassment. One precinct secretary was on hold with the party's hotline for over an hour, and then had his call disconnected by the person on the other end live on CNN. Des Moines County Democratic Chair Tom Courtney described similar scenes across his county, where caucus organizers attempted to call in their results to no avail. It seems they were unprepared for the amount of calls they were swamped with after the app's failure.
As another backup method, this was the first time Iowa instituted a paper trail, paper ballots were to be returned to the caucus chair in order to be eligible to be counted in the event of a recount. But it appears that some caucus chairs were not even aware that the paper ballots would be returned to them, again likely in part due to a failure in training.
It's tempting to blame a general reliance on tech or jump to conspiracy theories, and in this case it's somewhat understandable. According to FEC filings, the Biden and Buttigieg 2020 campaigns have both paid the company who made the app, Shadow Inc., though it's unclear for what. It's also emerged that many of the people involved in the app's development were previous Hillary for America employees in various technology roles. Screenshots of the employee's LinkedIn profiles began circulating on twitter not long after it became clear that something was amiss.
But I think there is a simpler explanation here. Anyone who has worked at a badly managed software company or on a poorly run team on a tight deadline is very familiar with this situation. Based on the employment histories of those involved, it appears the revolving door between campaigns and the private sector, as well as the symbiotic relationships between former campaign workers and their professional political network is likely to blame. It's not difficult to imagine technologists failing up through campaigns and using their connections to be awarded these contracts once they enter the private sector, leading to a situation where no one involved in the decision making process has worked at this scale.
What you get from this is a group of people who have no idea what they are doing, being responsible for the integrity of our electoral process. From the actions of those who decided Shadow Inc. was the right company for this job, to those along every step of the way who neglected basic development practices, a cascading set of failures led us here. This is not only a failure in the planning, development, testing, and deployment of this app, but in the creation of backup methods, to the point where the electoral process is compromised. To me this doesn't seem necessarily or purposely malicious, it seems more like incompetence and negligence.
This morning, the Iowa Democratic Party released a statement stating that their data is sound and confirming that there were no cyber security issues. It seems that while most people were focused on the looming threat of Russian election interference, much more common and less nefarious villains entered the scene: executives, product managers, developers, and party officials who did not know what they were doing. The statement conveniently does not mention that their data is incomplete, due to all the issues mentioned above.
The statement goes on to describe the issue in this way: "We have determined that this was due to a coding issue in the reporting system. This issue was identified and fixed. The application's reporting issue did not impact the ability of precinct chairs to report data accurately."
A lot of what we're thinking around this situation is speculative due to the amount of information that's available to us. But there are many questions to be asked. Who decided Shadow Inc. was capable of designing and deploying this application? What were the Biden and Buttigieg campaigns paying for when they sent thousands of dollars to Shadow Inc.? Who decided it wasn't necessary to train the users, or to even relay to the users of the purpose of the app? Who was responsible for failure of the backup methods? Are we to believe that the issue that was identified and fixed was deployed last night, and that users again went through the process of sideloading an updated version of the app? As we go into the Nevada caucuses where the app will also be used, should we trust the people responsible for all these issues to be competent enough to fix them in time?
We deserve answers. Personally, I don't feel confident that every process failure that we've seen here can be corrected in the short amount of time before Nevada. Ideally, external auditors would get involved to figure out and document what happened and give us the answers we need. We can't settle for depending on the people who got us into this mess. If they won't give us the transparency we deserve, we must demand it.
Update: Although initial reports indicated the same app would be used in Nevada, the Nevada Democratic Party has since released a statement vowing not to use it.
A provision in the Republican budget law signed earlier this month "kneecaps the entire organization" and harms patients' ability to access care, said a judge.
Patients who use Medicaid to access health services at Planned Parenthood clinics will not be forced to find care elsewhere following a ruling Monday by a federal judge in Massachusetts.
Judge Indira Talwani in the state's federal District Court extended a temporary restraining order she had placed on the Trump administration earlier this month, barring it from imposing a one-year ban on states sending Medicaid payments to nonprofits that provide abortion care.
The ban, a provision in the domestic policy and budget bill President Donald Trump signed into law this month, applied only to groups that received more than $800,000 in Medicaid funding in 2023—suggesting Planned Parenthood, a longtime foe of right-wing policymakers, is the "target of the law," said Talwani.
Federal law already prohibits public funds from being used to pay for abortion care, and Talwani found that the Republican Party and the Trump administration aimed to force clinics to "disaffiliate with Planned Parenthood Federation and stop providing abortion to continue participating in Medicaid programs."
"Imposing that choice kneecaps the entire organization," said Talwani.
Ripping Medicaid funds away from clinics would also harm patients, said the judge. About 11% of female Medicaid beneficiaries used services at Planned Parenthood clinics in 2021, according to the KFF, and the provision in the budget law made patients "likely to suffer adverse health consequences where care is disrupted or unavailable."
"In particular, restricting members' ability to provide healthcare services threatens an increase in unintended pregnancies and attendant complications because of reduced access to effective contraceptives, and an increase in undiagnosed and untreated STIs," Talwani said.
Talwani had granted relief for certain Planned Parenthood member organizations last week with her temporary restraining order, but the injunction applies to all clinics. The Trump administration filed an appeal of the restraining order last week; Talwani's injunction will remain in effect barring action from the appeals court.
Dominique Lee, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, said she was "encouraged" by Monday's ruling.
"At a time when reproductive healthcare access is under constant attack, this decision is a powerful reminder that patients, not politics, should guide healthcare," said Lee. "In Massachusetts and beyond, we will keep fighting to ensure everyone can turn to the provider they trust, no matter their insurance or ZIP code."
U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) called the ruling "a big win."
"As this case continues, patients across the country can still go to their trusted Planned Parenthood provider for care using Medicaid," said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "We will keep fighting this cruel law so that everyone can get birth control, STI testing and treatment, cancer screenings, and other critical healthcare, no matter their insurance."
"We're supportive of what the president is trying to do. But the reality of it is our industry has to have the Hispanic immigrant-based workers in it," said the CEO of an Alabama construction firm.
After months of national protests over U.S. President Donald Trump's mass deportation agenda, even some of his supporters—including an Alabama man who runs day-to-day operations at construction sites—have come to the conclusion that workplace raids aimed at rounding up undocumented immigrants are the wrong way to go.
In an interview with Reuters published Monday, construction site superintendent Robby Robertson expressed frustration at the way the Trump administration's hard-line immigration policies have impacted his business.
He said that trouble at his site began in late May shortly after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid on a construction site in Tallahassee, Florida, which he said scared off nearly his entire workforce for several days afterward. Even though nearly two months have passed since then, he said a little more than half of his workforce has come back.
This is negatively impacting his current project, which he said was projected to be finished already but which has been slow to complete now that his initial 22-person roofing team has dwindled down to just a dozen workers. As if that weren't enough, Reuters wrote that Robertson's company "is facing potentially $84,000 in extra costs for the delays under a 'liquidated damages' clause of $4,000 for every day the project runs beyond" its deadline.
"I'm a Trump supporter," Robertson told Reuters. "But I just don't think the raids are the answer."
Robertson added that the raids aren't just intimidating undocumented immigrant workers but also Latino workers who are in the country legally but who don't want to get swept up in raids "because of their skin color."
"They are scared they look the part," Robertson explained.
Tim Harrison, the CEO of the construction firm that is building the project being overseen by Robertson, told Reuters that finding native-born American workers to do the kind of work he needs is extremely difficult, especially since Alabama already has a low unemployment rate that makes trying to attract workers to a physically demanding industry difficult.
"The contractor world is full of Republicans," explained Harrison in an interview with Reuters. "I'm not anti-ICE. We're supportive of what the president is trying to do. But the reality of it is our industry has to have the Hispanic immigrant-based workers in it."
A report issued earlier this month by the progressive Economic Policy Institute (EPI) projected that the construction industry could take a severe hit from Trump's mass deportation plan given how many undocumented immigrants work in that industry.
"Employment in the construction sector will drop sharply: U.S.-born construction employment will fall by 861,000, and immigrant employment will fall by 1.4 million," wrote EPI senior economist Ben Zipperer, who added that the Trump administration's plans risked "squandering the full employment... inherited from the Biden administration and also causing immense pain to the millions of U.S.-born and immigrant workers who may lose their jobs."
"We're holding these members of Congress accountable for voting for the Republican tax law that strips health care away from millions of Texas families," said Unrig Our Economy campaign director Leor Tal.
The progressive advocacy group Unrig Our Economy launched a new $2 million advertising campaign Monday against four Texas Republicans who voted for the massive Medicaid cuts in this month's GOP megabill.
At the behest of President Donald Trump, Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is mounting an unusual mid-decade effort to redraw Texas' congressional map to keep control of the U.S. House of Representatives come 2026.
The plan is expected to net the GOP five seats. But the flipside is that some seats that were once GOP locks may become more vulnerable to Democratic challengers.
Those include the ones held by Republican Reps. Lance Gooden (5), Monica De La Cruz (15), Beth Van Duyne (24), and Dan Crenshaw (2)—all of whom voted for the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act."
Put together, these four congresspeople alone represent around 450,000 Medicaid recipients, according to data from KFF.
The law remains dismally unpopular, with the majority of Americans believing that it benefits the rich, while providing little to ordinary Americans. According to a Navigator survey conducted last week, 7 in 10 Americans said they were concerned about its cuts to Medicaid.
The Congressional Budget Office projects that 10 million Americans will lose health insurance as a result of the law's Medicaid cuts.
Around 200,000 of them are in Texas according to KFF. In total, up to 1.7 million people in the state may lose their insurance as a result of other subsidies that were also cut.
Those are the people Unrig Our Economy hopes to reach with its new ad blitz.
One ad hits Crenshaw—whose district has nearly 92,000 Medicaid recipients—for making false promises to protect the program.
(Video: Unrig Our Economy)
It shows a video of the congressman from May 14 assuring Texans: "You have nothing to worry about. Your Medicaid is not going anywhere," less than two months before voting for "the largest Medicaid and healthcare cuts in history."
Another singles out De La Cruz—who represents over 181,000 Medicaid recipients—for her vote for the bill after warning that the cuts "would have serious consequences, particularly in rural and predominantly Hispanic communities where hospitals and nursing homes are already struggling to keep their doors open."
Among hundreds at risk across the country, 15 rural hospitals in Texas are in danger of closing because of the cuts, according to a study by the health services research arm of the University of North Carolina.
The ads targeting Gooden and Van Duyne, meanwhile, draw more attention to the effects of their cuts on Texan families: "Medicaid covers a third of all children, half of all pregnant women, the elderly in long-term care, and the disabled."
(Video: Unrig Our Economy)
Gooden's district contains more than 120,000 Medicaid recipients—over half of whom are children. In Van Duyne's district, children make up close to two-thirds of the more than 57,000 enrollees.
According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the bill cuts more than $930 billion in total from Medicaid over the next ten years. Over that same ten-year period, the wealthiest 1% of Americans will receive over $1 trillion worth of tax breaks.
All the ads hammer home the fact that these devastating cuts were passed "to fund tax breaks for billionaires."
Unrig Our Economy's ad blitz is the first salvo of a $20-million effort by the House Majority PAC—the largest national PAC supporting Democrats—to beat back the effects of the Republican gerrymandering effort.
"We're holding these members of Congress accountable for voting for the Republican tax law that strips healthcare away from millions of Texas families," said Unrig Our Economy campaign director Leor Tal.
Unrig Our Economy has launched similar ads against vulnerable Republicans across the country, such as first-term Rep. Rob Bresnahan, whose northeast Pennsylvania constituency is made up of more than one-fourth Medicaid recipients.
"These ads," Tal said, "are just the latest in our nationwide campaign to show the horrible impacts of this law, which benefits the superwealthy at working families' expense."