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February 4, 2020 04:30 am

User-Error Problems With Iowa Caucus App Cause Online Confusion

Reports of Iowa precinct chairs struggling to use an app designed to help tally participation in the Democratic presidential caucuses on Monday fueled conspiracy theories on social media and raised questions about how smoothly the high-stakes nominating contest would unfold. From a report: Just hours before the beginning of the contest, the first of the 2020 elections, the headquarters of the Iowa Democratic Party received multiple calls from precinct chairs around the state reporting problems with the new app the party is using to calculate, tabulate and report results for the caucuses. The state party said nearly all of the calls were related to user-error problems, such as precincts in areas with bad cellphone service having problems downloading or logging into the app, or others simply asking about the app's functionality. Though the issues could possibly cause results to be delayed, the party said that it would not ultimately affect the reporting of results. Sean Bagniewski, the Democratic Party chairman in Polk County, the most populous county in Iowa, said that only 20 percent of his 177 chairs could get into the app, but he added that there were "no malfunctions." "We're telling everyone to phone it in," Mr. Bagniewski said, referring to the hotline the party has used for decades to report results. Yet those issues appeared to trigger speculation on Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms that the app had been hacked, or that it was malfunctioning in a way that would benefit a certain candidate. Further reading: Results from Iowa caucuses delayed because of 'quality control'.

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