I don’t know if anybody even remembers the Iowa Democratic Caucus fiasco, in which folks wondered if we were ever going to get a count. It stirred a lot of suspicion at the time.[1]
Blame has now been apportioned, but I’ll tell you a secret. Yeah, it’s a wonderful idea to have checks on the tallying process, but the time to ask for those checks is at the beginning, when the system is being designed, rather than at the very last fucking minute, especially when there are conversion issues between systems that weren’t designed to work with each other.[2]
The audit was conducted by the Iowa Democratic Party so, of course, they’re not going to find the malice that many of the Left suspected was an effort to suppress a positive result for Bernie Sanders.[3] But if you’re trying to disrupt a software development effort and hence what that software is supposed to accomplish, doing just what the Democratic National Committee did—demanding those major last minute changes—is a pretty effective way of doing it. As we saw.[4]
I don’t get to say there was malice on the basis of this report. But it sure looks like the DNC was at least grossly negligent.
- [1]Michael Biesecker and Brian Slodysko, “Maker of glitchy Iowa caucus app has Democratic Party ties,” Associated Press, February 4, 2020, https://apnews.com/5232ce5601996c1de440806ad30fa4fb; Rod Dreher, “DNC Sandbagging Bernie?” American Conservative, February 6, 2020, https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/democrats-dnc-sandbagging-bernie/; Reid J. Epstein et al., “How the Iowa Caucuses Became an Epic Fiasco for Democrats,” New York Times, February 9, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/09/us/politics/iowa-democratic-caucuses.html; Andrew Gumbel, “Iowa and the grand tradition of election tech mishaps,” Guardian, February 5, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/05/iowa-election-tech-issues-florida; Natasha Korecki, David Siders, and Alex Thompson, “‘It’s a total meltdown’: Confusion seizes Iowa as officials struggle to report results,” Politico, February 4, 2020, https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/03/iowa-caucus-2020-election-110600; John McCormick and Ken Thomas, “Democratic Caucus Results in Iowa Thrown Into State of Confusion,” Wall Street Journal, February 4, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/iowa-caucuses-to-kick-off-democratic-nominating-contest-11580731200; Isaac Stanley-Becker, “DNC chair calls for recanvass in Iowa,” Washington Post, February 6, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/dnc-chair-calls-for-recanvas-in-iowa/2020/02/06/0ec4dc4c-4906-11ea-9164-d3154ad8a5cd_story.html↩
- [2]Tyler Pager, “Iowa autopsy report: DNC meddling led to caucus debacle,” Politico, December 12, 2020, https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/12/iowa-caucus-dnc-report-444649↩
- [3]Russell Berman, “Bernie Sanders’s Biggest Win Yet,” Atlantic, February 22, 2020, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/02/bernie-wins-nevada/606937/; Tyler Pager, “Iowa autopsy report: DNC meddling led to caucus debacle,” Politico, December 12, 2020, https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/12/iowa-caucus-dnc-report-444649↩
- [4]Reid J. Epstein et al., “How the Iowa Caucuses Became an Epic Fiasco for Democrats,” New York Times, February 9, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/09/us/politics/iowa-democratic-caucuses.html; Andrew Gumbel, “Iowa and the grand tradition of election tech mishaps,” Guardian, February 5, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/05/iowa-election-tech-issues-florida; Natasha Korecki, David Siders, and Alex Thompson, “‘It’s a total meltdown’: Confusion seizes Iowa as officials struggle to report results,” Politico, February 4, 2020, https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/03/iowa-caucus-2020-election-110600; John McCormick and Ken Thomas, “Democratic Caucus Results in Iowa Thrown Into State of Confusion,” Wall Street Journal, February 4, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/iowa-caucuses-to-kick-off-democratic-nominating-contest-11580731200↩
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