The conspiracy theories about Iowa are bizarre.

[bluedye33139]

I'm not seeing them repeated here much because they essentially violate community norms here, but they are fascinating.

The essential theory is that a global cabal of evildoers is faking all of the data out of Iowa.

All in all, it's nice to come to Democratic Underground and be free from conspiratorial and delusional nonsense.

[Wellstone ruled]

1. Tom Price and Company got caught with

a failure to have a backup system in place.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. When things don't happen as expected, sometimes people are tempted to think

there was a conspiracy, or at least some intentional misfeasance - but it's not a good idea to just assume malevolence when the most likely cause was incompetence. Occam's Razor. In Iowa some shitty, untested software couldn't handle the job. We'll find out before long what the vote totals were because there were paper ballots. There should always be paper ballots because when technology fails it makes a huge mess. But it wasn't caused by Russians or Republicans or Third Way Democrats or the Trilateral Commission or aliens.

[W_HAMILTON]

3. Fuck those Jill Stein supporters, Republicans, and some, I assume, are Russian.

The voters in Iowa spoke, and what they said was far different from what those divisive internet trolls have been obnoxiously claiming over the past year.

[Nitram]

4. Bluedye, that's exactly how I see it too.

[TwilightZone]

5. There are a few on DU trying to subtly push them...

but I agree it's nice to come here and get away from the barrage. Social media is flooded with it.

[redqueen]

6. The optics are ... not good

Link to tweet

[Retrograde]

7. I wonder how many of these problems have been there all along

and are just coming to light now because this shiny new app is making people look at the paperwork more closely. From what I've read in this forum, there seem to be a lot more problems than software. I don't think there's any deep, dark conspiracy: it's more likely people not entirely clear on how the process works, with little to no training.

[Blue_true]

8. That is why we need primaries with paper ballots.

People vote, the vote gets counted, results get reported. We can work to secure voting machines, the notion that some push that we can't do that is nonsense.