Iowa doesn't smell right

[angrychair]

The nature and circumstances of the deal with this company and the DNC needs to be investigated and everyone connected to this deal should resign or be fired.

As an IT professional, the very notion of deploying an app that had been developed in 2 months and was untested and no end user had been trained how to use it is mind-numbingly ignorant.

The other piece that triggers my spidey sense is that a caucus is, if nothing else, very hands on and very public.
I was a involved in caucusing in Washington before we changed to primary format. There was absolutely no mystery in what the numbers were.

The numbers coming out of the precincts are on paper. Lots of paper. The chair and captains all know what they are.
Even if this app was completely useless, the numbers are very well known and all you need is a calculator to add it all up.

Unless I'm missing something, this shouldn't be that hard to figure out.

What is going on?

[uponit7771]

1. "..and was untested and no end user had been trained .." 😮😮😮

[Buns_of_Fire]

4. Unforgivable. Period.

[uponit7771]

7. +1, someone should've spoken up and told them deploy a production app for that many people in 2 ...

... months without a rigorous testing regime would end up in disaster.

Sounds like the company that made the app just wanted money, we'll see

[fescuerescue]

57. That is certainly true

"Sounds like the company that made the app just wanted money, we'll see"

Pretty much no one develops software at this level for free or fun.

I'm sure I can guess pretty much what happened here:

1) The need and requirement was set a long time ago. Maybe years ago.
2) The actual contract award was held up in bureacracy until maybe 6 months ago.
3) Requirements changed for 4 months after that.
4) Finally they had 2 months left.
5) They finished just under the wire. I would bet you a huge amount of money that the compilation date on the software is sometime in the last week. Most likely the night before around 1am.

What's missing? Testing time.

I've seen that sequence only a few hundreds times in my career.

[jmg257]

2. Latest most informative post I have read...true or not?...

Link to tweet

/photo/2

""While the app was recording data properly, it was reporting out only partial data.
We have determined that was due to a coding issue..."

[angrychair]

11. I get their point

But no one is convincing me that an app was developed, tested and deployed in 2 to 3 months and IT professionals, especially cybersecurity people, thought that is was a good idea, especially in this election of all elections.

The reporting function, that gives the actual precinct results would have been critical but obviously didn't work. The underlying data cannot be trusted if it's not reporting it correctly. Which is why they had to go back through, manually, to validate the data.

Again, start resigning and firing.

[jmg257]

12. Agreed. This is the DNC post yesterday - "Three years to prepare..."

For three years, we’ve been preparing for the process that officially kicks off tonight in Iowa: the Democratic presidential primary. Today our chair, @TomPerez, reflects on the reforms we’ve made to make this the most transparent primary in our history:

Link to tweet

And this is what they came up with - in November???

[Fresh_Start]

30. DNC didn't do it

DNC shouldn't have taken credit for what Iowa did or did not do successfully.

Nevada get you butts in overdrive..have a good solution before your caucus.

[justie18]

34. Plus

The DNC had nothing to do with the selection of the software app, or lack of testing it. Put that blame on the Iowa Democratic Party.

[still_one]

41. Some don't want facts, they just want a scapegoat

[aggiesal]

50. Apparently, Nevada is supposed to use the same APP! n/t

[jmg257]

77. Great point - thanks! nt

[fescuerescue]

54. IT professionals and cybersecurity people

frequently think that something isn't a good idea. That's happens damn near everyday.

Sometimes they are listened to. Sometimes they aren't.

[mr_lebowski]

88. Reports can definitely be wrong w/o the underlying data being questionable ...

Reports are 'windows' into underlying data, and the parameters of that window can be coded incorrectly.

In fact it's very common to discover reporting errors by comparing them with the raw data (which one assumes to be correct) and finding that things don't jibe between them.

Report code that fails to account for unexpected dupes in the underlying data is a REAL common mistake, for example. You do your tests on the report w/no dupes, but don't realize that the underlying table structure holding the data doesn't preclude dupes w/appropriate unique indexes.

Real people (not testers) go to use it and they create dupes that the testers didn't think to do themselves. Then the reports blow up.

Granted in this particular example there's an underlying data integrity issue in a manner of speaking, but it's very reparable. And this is just a for instance, in many cases, there wouldn't be one at all, only bad report coding.

[angrychair]

95. I get that

Which is my issue. The app does not appear to have been tested or vetted correctly. They took less than 2 months on the whole app. This just doesn't make a lot sense.

This was a critical event that could not afford even the appearance of a screw up.

This was not the time or place to use that software.

[Javaman]

17. democracy gets post-poned due to a coding issue.

how fucking bizarre and sad state of affairs our nation is in.

[ancianita]

39. No, it doesn't. It's an end user issue. And our nation has gone through this before.

So it's not "fucking bizarre" nor a "sad state of affairs."

[Javaman]

91. why thank you for the obnoxious correction.

cheers to you and block.

[ancianita]

93. You gave your opinion. I gave mine. Block away.

[Perseus]

31. Did the Russians hack the app? Is that why not all votes were counted?

Whose idea was to use an app? They wanted to show they are with the times? Imagine the bugs that app had...

This is unacceptable!

Technology serves no purpose in an election, well it only serves one purpose, it allows cheaters to cheat. Please, go back to pencil and paper, there is no way to hack a piece of paper if properly guarded.

[ancianita]

40. You ask and answer your own question. What is your point.

Try to understand Iowans' work of trying to do a good, honest job.

Your "unacceptable" over what you imagine isn't a fair analysis of the situation.

[defacto7]

56. Of course they have the best of intentions.

I'm sure the percentage of bad players in Iowa is no different than any other state. But there's a saying that the road to... some.. place.. is paved with good intentions. Elections are too important to rely on best intent, it has to be backed by real science and experience disconnected from buisness and political influence. Experts have always known computers in voting were a mistake. Apps in voting are a massive mistake.

[ancianita]

66. One mistake does not make the case for any other also-flawed system, though, does it.

We need to be having a nationwide talk about what voting systems best minimize dishonesty -- not by voters as much as by the powers that be.

Of all the flawed systems we could use, my vote is for a paper ballot system, with a monitored paper trail, from voter to district to state. I have a plan for that.

[Farmer-Rick]

58. Yeah, that was my first thought. This is the work of Shorty Putin's goon squad.

Trump is certainly glowing over it.

It just so convient for the GOP.

[jmg257]

79. They fucked it up - not a real stretch to understand. They found the coding error

and corrected it.

On Edit:

THAT, tied in with the apparent lack of supposed users to use the flawed app, are the culprits.

[Farmer-Rick]

109. Allow me to play devils advocate

How do we know it was a coding error? How do we know it was not Putin's hack team and the DNC said it was a coding error to cover up the hacking so it wouldn't keep people away from the polls. Knowing Russia could so easily hack the DNC would be very discouraging.

Anyway, it is just a thought. This whole thing seems strange.

[woundedkarma]

32. How many years of experience did the dev team have?

I'll bet it was zerooooo.

They hired some junior, told him to work on it, didn't give him any QA help and then bam.. "it's showtime!"

If this is the way it went, I hope nobody blames the junior. It isn't their fault at all.

We get told to build things and we do the best we can.

Blame the company and the people who hired them.

[Forever Blue]

75. If the data was recorded properly, ...

why does it take more than a couple of hours and a calculator to compile the totals from 1600 precincts, and publicly post the results?
I will certainly hope for a better explanation than this, in the coming hours.

[cwydro]

3. Perhaps this belongs in primaries?

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

5. You are probably smelling all those cows.

[angrychair]

9. Lol

That too

[TwilightZone]

21. And pigs.

Lots and lots (pun intended) of pigs.

[Mendocino]

43. 50 shades of brown

Iowa has 19.2 million hogs, 4m cattle, 260,000 sheep and 70m chickens.

[jayschool2013]

51. And a healthy GOP

adding to the mountains of shit.

[Historic NY]

6. Another reason to just have voting machines.

an end this caucus crap.

[AllyCat]

64. Oh yeah, voting machines. That oughtta do the trick...

...for the GOP and their god Putin

[SergeStorms]

73. Not all voting machines are crap.

New York used to have wonderful mechanical voting machines up until around 2000. They worked like a charm, seldom having a single problem, and then the fad of very hackable scanning machines (pushed by the GOP) made by Diebold came into favor. The GOP has been stealing elections ever since.I wish we had those old mechanical machines back again. There was no real way to hack them, they kept a running tally of all votes, and they worked like a charm. Then.........progress.? Progress was alright once, but it's gone on entirely too long.

[AllyCat]

86. Ah, my bad. THAT kind of machine.

With a paper trail. Still, I like paper ballots, hand-counted in public.

[SergeStorms]

108. Oh, I agree 100%.

I don't care if it takes a month to count all the ballots and to declare a winner. All of the hackable, crapable scanning machines without a paper trail the voter can get a copy from aren't worth the powder to blow them all to hell. Second to those, I'll take the old mechanical machines, even though there was no paper trail.

[Rider3]

8. 2000 Election

It didn't seem problematic until 2000. After that election, no one could get their shit together. I don't trust elections since then, and I trust them even less today. And, we definitely need to get rid of the Electoral College immediately.

[Baitball Blogger]

10. You're absolutely right.

"As an IT professional, the very notion of deploying an app that had been developed in 2 months and was untested and no end user had been trained how to use it is mind-numbingly ignorant."

My son works in computer programming and he said he got a real education when the customer ordered an app and the company was ready to launch it when the only thing that was ready was the interface.

[defacto7]

46. I concur 100 percent.

[Arthur_Frain]

13. You know, all we really needed was a drama free, unquestioned procedure from you Iowa.

Way to go. Yay, you guys gave the idiot a big hole to shout through to start this whole thing off.

If we do, this is why we are going to lose. When you can’t even screw the top on a mayonnaise bottle property, you fail to inspire any confidence at all.

[angrychair]

15. Exactly

I mean damn, it wasnt broke, why did you need to fix it?

A caucus is time consuming and irritating but it isnt hard.

This was a cluster waiting to happen.

The DNC should have thought a lot more about this and then thought about it some more and not done it till the next midterm.

[Arthur_Frain]

19. Caucusing isn't difficult, but it should have been phased out long ago.

It isn’t fair, and it’s too easy to gimmick the more people are involved. Might have been great when the population was a tenth of what it is. But deciding to use an “app” in your election process?

Why anybody who’s used “apps” would decide that’s the way to go to replace or fix a caucus is beyond me. The first time they publish an update to the app, it’s not going to work properly anymore.

This is so frustrating. In the runup to the 2004 elections I thought all the Democratic Party had to do to unseat GWB was not shoot themselves in the foot. They proceeded to do so. Repeatedly.

Here we go again. In the runup to the 2020 elections, this is more of the same.

[gibraltar72]

14. If they had tried.

they couldn't have created a bigger cluster.

[moondust]

16. Lack of situational awareness.

Last edited Tue Feb 4, 2020, 12:26 PM - Edit history (1)

Somebody in Iowa apparently didn't understand the critical importance of reporting results in a timely manner with the whole world watching and waiting. Not the time to be trying out new tricks and gimmicks. Wouldn't matter so much if it happened after Super Tuesday.

[33taw]

18. This clearly demonstrates the need for paper ballots.

[Arthur_Frain]

20. This times 1 million.

I don’t even care what you make it out of. I want a permanent record of the vote.

Technology is great for what it works for, but when you try to make it work unready it’s a shitstorm waiting.

[33taw]

22. This needs to be the narrative going forward.

The company that wrote this app is not nearly experienced enough for this important of an app. I don’t think we know what caused the glitch, but we are looking at less than 10,000 pieces of data. This should not be that hard.

[Bettie]

59. There is paper, everything is recorded on official forms

but paper results need to be handled by humans.

That is what is happening now. Everyone is taking their results to their county chairs, where it will all be checked against the phone-in results.

This is a delay to ensure accurate reporting, to avoid someone being declared the winner and finding out later that wasn't the case.

If we all went to hand counted paper ballots for everything, it might take multiple days before any information was out.

A small delay to ensure accuracy isn't a bad thing. Yes, it doesn't give immediate gratification, but it isn't the end of the world either.

[OnlinePoker]

67. Canada elects their federal government with hand counted paper ballots

The entire election (unless a riding is really close and requires a judicial recount) is over in less than 3 hours after the polls close.

[33taw]

90. They don't have to be hand counted, just auditable.

[Initech]

23. Voting by an app is one of the dumbest ideas ever conceived.

You might as well have a sign that says "hack me" on it. And then to see this:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/03/us/politics/iowa-caucus-app.html

[TheBlackAdder]

24. Open-Source Software--You get what you pay for. Almost all not reviewed, and many done by hackers.

.

There's a fallacy that open-source software is more secure because it is reviewed by others.

In reality, no one really reviews it besides academia, nation states and hackers. They do not have to disassemble the code because the source is given to them to exploit. On top of that, many of the open-source groups are infiltrated with hackers and nation state developers to inject rogue code or malware.

As an example: Many companies are moving to this Spring Open Development platform, because it's free. It's also rife with hundreds of vulnerabilities.

While an app might be custom built, it is often done using widgets, plug-ins, or code development tools that are laced with vulnerabilities that open the application up to remote access, injection, takeover, or updating of data.


=======


Read the following article and then travel to Sonatype, register and get the free download of the report.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/09/25/open_source_security/

Just search: SONATYPE OPEN SOURCE SECURITY

.

[marble falls]

25. That's just a hog confinement.

[Prosper]

27. I believe the accounts receivable part of any business billing program could have handled the job.

[cbdo2007]

28. As an IT professional then...you know this kind of thing happens all the time...

We just released a product where I work a few weeks ago that was untested and no end user training...we just didn't have time but the upper management didn't want to delay it, we have target goals we have to meet.

I'm guessing it's someone's nephew or something that created this app and doesn't know what they are doing and yes, hadn't tested it.

[Nasruddin]

33. More common

It seems to be a growing software industry problem.
Maybe the concept of a/b testing has had an unexpected side effect, turning the customers into the beta testers/quality control team.

[Brainfodder]

52. See video games for many many examples of ruined releases due to bad launch.

Last edited Tue Feb 4, 2020, 02:02 PM - Edit history (1)

They never learn when corporate ru$h dev mode is enabled?

...and probably devs & those over them, are sometimes too loose with estimates on release dates?

...under staffed for the project, also common?

...issues...

[fescuerescue]

68. Not just games but games are a very visibile example

Ultimately it just bad management.

There is always a countdown clock. That clock is powered by money. More money = more time on the clock.

No matter how much money the product is expected to generate, it generates NOTHING until customers pay for it. This means that some products have zero revenue for years, while the company pays all the people who put it together.

There isn't much that can be done about that money/clock. But what happens is that usually WAY to much of the clock is wasted on pointless meetings and discussions and the hardpart (development) is squeezed into a smaller and smaller allotment of time.

While management can have another month of meetings, that month of meetings only reduces development time and that drop dead date never moves.

Sometimes management gets the idea that they can extend the clock by hiring junior engineers. Cheaper so they can pay them longer. Rarely pays off though.

And the estimates on release dates? Lol. Those don't come from developers. Those are GIVEN to developers as deadlines. Deadlines are almost NEVER based on work estimates. They are based on budgets and market windows.

[Brainfodder]

80. I agree.

Adjusted, thanks.

[Fresh_Start]

29. absolute failure of preparation and training.

I have training this week for super tuesday.
A person cannot work in a polling station unless in person training is completed.

That should have been done in Iowa, too.
PS: training is required for each election.


So we're being trained for primary right now.
If we work the general election, there will be another training required.

And we have paper ballots.

[W_HAMILTON]

35. What did the DNC have to do with the decisions made by the IDP?

As usual, conspiracy theorists get wrong even the most basic of facts.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

74. The DNC is many people's favorite whipping boy I guess.

[patphil]

36. Sounds like more development time and testing went into "Angry Birds".

Using a smart phone app to handle an election is beyond stupid.
I agree, people need to lose their jobs over this.
Iowa should also lose the whole caucus thing. It's just not up to the task of handling a presidential primary when there are a lot of people running.

[bearsfootball516]

38. The same thing happened for the Romney campaign in 2012

Look up Project Orca, meant to be the Romney campaign’s GOTV app. It was developed at the last minute, was never stress tested and crashed and burned on Election Day.

[bonniebgood]

37. who exactly owns this software? China and Ivanka?

[Roland99]

42. HANLON'S RAZOR

“never attribute to malice what can easily be attributed to stupidity.”

(or incompetence)

[FiveGoodMen]

65. Assume that everyone in power failed upward and they're too stupid to be a threat.

[bucolic_frolic]

44. It will look great tonight when Iowa results displace SOTU bloviation

so who's complaining? It gets peoples' attention

[Bettie]

60. Well, there is that

and won't Agent Orange have a fit when he's not the big news!

[Botany]

45. I smell Russia

n/t

[gab13by13]

47. I don't give a damn if Perez had nothing to do with this,

he needs to speak out now, or maybe we should just allow Trump to control the narrative.

Didn't Nevada already pay Shadow to do its primary? I remember watching the chaos that went on in Las Vegas for the last Democratic primary held there.

[Bettie]

49. Does Perez ever say anything?

about anything? I've not seen or heard a word from him in ages.

[Bettie]

48. I do actually know what is going on

my husband was our chair and I was the secretary.

What is happening right now is verification.

First, finding out who reported in and who didn't. We were on hold almost two hours, so some people may have given up and gone to bed.

Then, they are checking the numbers against the reported numbers to ensure that everything is accurate.

The Iowa Democrats are working really hard on this to ensure accurate counts.

[h2ebits]

71. Thank you!!!

Brand new programs always need testing by users.

Paper ballots should be used for all elections of any kind because, even with old programs that have been around for a while, any updates (changes) to programs can screw up results--accidentally and not with malicious intent.

Truly, anyone with hands on experience with computers of any kind, knows about bugs.

Seems to me that Iowa's back-up plan with counting the paper ballots is an excellent tool to ensure accuracy of the count. I'm hoping that they can complete it prior to or during the SOTU tonight.

[TomVilmer]

53. XKCD: Voting Software

[AtheistCrusader]

62. This rules.

It shouldn't be this way, but for now, that's the reality of it.

[angrychair]

100. ...

[2naSalit]

55. Does czarina own the license, patents or stock in this company?

I don't buy the story we're being told either.

[calimary]

61. I keep going back to one word: Russia.

If it’s in any way electronic, then Russia can fuck with it.

[IronLionZion]

63. Iowa has had caucuses for decades without this problem

Even if they wanted to use a new app, maybe have the old process as backup. And of course they needed adequate time to test it and train people on how to use it. If they don't have time for that, then hold off on implementing the app. And why develop an app 2 months before go live? It's not like it's a surprise. They know when the caucus date is.

We still don't know exactly what happened. There may have been malicious interference.

[bucolic_frolic]

69. Stock Market doesn't smell right either - up 497 points

They bottomed it last week with Coronavirus, today Tesla hype and screaming move, tomorrow after Trump's hype SOTU I would expect we'll see up 1,000 points. This is manipulated, orchestrated, contrived, crooked, planned, rigged.

[IronLionZion]

102. There are puppetmasters pulling the strings and we are all being jerked around

For Tesla, it was the most shorted stock in America and a lot of those short positions had to be covered by a recent deadline, combined with stronger than expected earnings caused the price to shoot up.

The rest of the market saw the Chinese central bank pump billions in to bail out their markets to stabilize their coronavirus selloff. Markets everywhere have gotten used to central bank bailouts and expect more stimulus to prop things up. Which begs the question, if things are so good why do they need to be propped up?

[Tweedy]

70. People went home

And the Iowa Democratic Party is trying to reach Them? Most definitely, Iowa dems want to be sure the posted results are right.

How do you properly test an app that goes live with a caucus like this, incidentally ?

Not a techie, but when I heard about this app last week, i couldn't figure out how they could properly live test this thing. You don't know in advance how many people will caucus, how fast they will finish, how many will be interacting with the app at once. Did everyone use the same device or were there multiple device interfaces?

[angrychair]

99. You have old data

From previous caucus events.

You use real data from past events and run it like it's a live event.

That part is rather easy. Its been done before and the people using the app know what its like.

As far as reaching the precinct chairs, that makes no sense.

They have an envelope with the count sheet and candidate break outs. That is signed by the chair and is the official record of that precinct's caucus.
Not sure why they would need them to validate the numbers. They know what that chair knows already.

[Tweedy]

105. Patience

They want to make certain it is right.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

72. Shouldn't this be in the primaries forum?

[ooky]

78. Yeah. Usually when something doesn't smell right around election processes,

I've learned to smell Republicans lurking nearby.

[TryLogic]

83. Yes indeed.

[Politicub]

81. Agree. I don't understand is why the paper reports have not been tallied by now.

Every precinct, apparently, has a form they filled out that has the results of the caucus.

Why is it so hard to tally the numbers from the sheets of paper? Iowa isn't so large that they need days to collect this info.

Maybe one excuse is the caucus leads (I don't know what they're called) relied too much on the app and didn't fill out the paper forms or filled them in half-assed.

[angrychair]

98. It's all on paper

Each precinct has a chairperson. They take all the final tallying and break out of delegate counts and it goes on a form with all the votes from each percent captain from each viable candidate.
It all goes in a secure envelope and is taken down to the office.

All anyone needs is a simple calculator. Done.

[TryLogic]

82. "Voting by an app is one of the dumbest ideas ever conceived."

"You might as well have a sign that says 'hack me' on it."

Duh!

[Algernon Moncrieff]

84. I've seen companies do equally stupid things

It could have been a setup, but its likely just idiocy.

The notion of using a phone app is really odd in parts of rural NW and SW Iowa. Phone coverage isnt great.

[MuseRider]

85. I agree but the good thing,

like you said, is that they have many many pieces of paper so counting the votes by hand might be tedious and take a while we will know in the end what happened.

These days, when something like this happens, it is so very easy for many of us to think it is a conspiracy. Why not think that? We have been cheated out of the only real way to ensure our elections are fair and the results are correct. This should be a lesson. Take the time to count them by hand. We can wait, spoiled little children that we are, we can actually wait.

[Forever Blue]

87. Has anyone in the Iowa Democratic Party thought, ....

to ask for a refund? This just cost them their undeserved coveted number one position, in shaping the candidate field.

[krissey]

89. This is the result of Sanders constant attack on Democrats. As an IT man you are well aware of

constant snaffus. All the time. We just had Telegenics put in out facilities thru out. Two weeks in, last night it was all down and using the back up internet sitting with three basic channels. We all know how this shit works, doesn't work. As an IT person you are well aware.

And yes, always the promise it will be smooth, and always wrong, way harder than was sold to us.

And we have paper. That is the crucial, to have that paper. We have it.

[Buns_of_Fire]

92. This reminds me of the three rules of software development:

(1) I can do it fast.
(2) I can do it cheap.
(3) I can do it right.

Pick any two.

[DallasNE]

94. They Broke Every Rule

They needed to load the app days before Monday and execute a test transaction and no backup plan. I'm guessing they also had scalability issues. Who knows what other bugs were in the app software. A true failure of project management.

[nini]

96. I suspect all kinds of stuff right now

and I'll just leave it at that.

[Luciferous]

97. Caucuses are stupid. I used to live in Iowa and they are such a mess. My husband works nights so he

couldn't participate, our caucus place was too small and the lines were so long I saw people turn around and leave, it takes forever to finish the caucus. Iowa should just do a regular primary, it would be easier and more accurate.

[earthside]

104. 1976 was 44 years ago.

Yes, back then Iowa became a Democratic Party phenomenon because it's caucuses launched Jimmy Carter.

Caucuses aren't quaint and grassrootsie anymore. Iowa has a large population and this old fashioned notion that you can get together with your neighbors in someone's living room and pick the nominee for president borders on ridiculous.

Iowa -- and New Hampshire, for that matter -- ought to be put in a drawing every four years with all the other presidential blue states to determine the order of first primaries.

[Pisces]

101. Everyone in the room knows the numbers. They can't change

The results. The people are involved in the counting!!

[Remington]

103. Bernie getting screwed again

[ehrnst]

106. "DNC needs to be investigated..."

Because...... this is somehow beneficial to them?

[angrychair]

107. Sorry

For clarification, the Iowa state Democratic party.

The point being that this software should not have gone to production yet. How that happened should be investigated and understood (not the FBI or anything like that, I mean internally)