I do not know what happened. I SUSPECT that there was not enough training or testing. For this type of application they should have had what is called a stress test. In that test a common test in software companies) you simulate the usage of the application far over what is expected. This type of testing will highlight bottlenecks and limitations. Much better to know that BEFORE you put it in highly visible production environment. (the Iowa caucus)
The winner of the election will be the one who can spread misinformation the fastest and the widest, using Twitter, Facebook, TV and even the MSM. This is what Brad Parscale and the Russians understand. In an age where people are used to instant gratification from their news feeds and, in many cases, don't even trust fact-checkers, the #MayorCheat type garbage will prevail. Part of me wants Democrats need to fight dirty too but once everyone goes down that path, the country is lost.
7
@MJ. But, if Trump is allowed to win because Democrats don't want to get their hands dirty, our country is lost anyway. That is a given. I'm willing to accept the risks of Democrats fighting back.
3
Is this a tech disaster or is it a media field day? Not so very long ago this time frame wouldn’t have been labeled a delay. It would have been normal and the count wouldn’t have been tainted by the possibility of technology hacks. Let’s decide what matters: instant gratification, or an accurate, reliable count.
20
@Richard Frank
It's a media field day.
I work in IT and this result is nothing unusual for rushed, underfunded, understaffed workers and managers who think they know better.
46
@Richard Frank : the issue is that the Iowa Democrat party set the wrong expectations and lost control of the process. It's not actually about the poor tech, but about their poor approach and lack of professionalism in advance. When it came to showtime, they moved mountains to try to right the inevitable mess.
If they had said in advance "It'll take 4 days to publish the results because we want to check every bit of paper to make sure everything's good", we wouldn't be spilling all these keystrokes now.
The Clinton Democrat operatives that own Acronym and Shadow certainly agree. It's Iowa's fault!.....Will these Democrats give Iowa their money back before they become exposed and look even more foolish? ..Will these Clinton people ever go away?
3
Two words: paper ballots.
Now, more words... Sure, apps are fun and all - and they have their place in social and entertainment pursuits. But for something as mission-critical as elections, even 'five nines' isn't enough.
In deference to today's reality, I'd use a solid financial services software developer over a social media developer any day. Someone who understands the level of security required to authenticate the transfer of money, and the ways to minimize the risk that its infrastructure can be penetrated. Not just at the point of purchase (the vote itself) but also in the routing of votes for aggregation into a statewide result.
23
There is currently an existential battle being waged in America between facts and nonsense. The Republican party wields a heavy weapon on the side of nonsense, with their standard-bearer declaring any aspiring legitimate press to be "the enemy of the people".
Voting results are as basic as facts are supposed to be. Republicans prefer to deny such facts when they don't point in their favor. Recall the 2000 general election which GWB did not actually "win", and Donald Trump preemptively declaring that the 2016 general election was rigged if he did not win. Then, to make it worse, he had to manufacture a lie about illegal voting to explain his loss in the popular vote.
Democrats need to ratchet-up their tech solutions. But, more crucially, they need to realize they are engaged with an enemy ready to cheat, lie and do anything else required to notch a "win". It's a sad fact. But that's where things stand.
42
So just because an untested application didn't work in Iowa, the Democrats are incompetent at governing? Gimme a break, people. Slick software doesn't automatically mean good government, obviously. Plus, there are plenty of savvy developers out there.
Here in Oregon we vote by mail with paper ballots. Simpler and cheaper Voters are automatically registered at the DMV, so more people vote. No system is perfect, but ours works pretty well.
14
She did not stretch the analogy to governing. Her point was simply, if you think the Blue Team are hip, globe trotting, techno geniuses and the Red Team are a bunch of bib overall clad, shotgun toting rubes unable to work a laser printer, then you better do a reset. The use of tech has little to do with governing except you don’t get to win the game and govern if you keep using scrubs.
8
@taffy and Michael
Perhaps there is a lesson for governing here - if you want to change the rules on something large and complicated like trade, financial regulation, health care and health insurance, or immigration you might be well-advised to start with a pilot project, pay attention to sequencing, be transparent, and work out the problems as you go along.
1
This is silly catastrophizing.
You want examples of real disasters:
- Katrina
- Puerto Rico
- Flint
If you want to discuss fails by the Parties, let's talk about the real thing.
What are you saying?!? The Democrats are the land of the Trial Lawyer. Biden, Kobachar, Warren, Obama, Hillary+Bill are all lawyers. So the only way they can tackle technology is to add more laws ans law suits?
Maybe they should follow the sage advice of VP Biden and take a programming course....
"Sorry, the Republicans Rule the Internet." Shouldn't that read: "The Republicans and the Russians Rule the Internet?" They are more than likely already embedded in the tech game in Trump's favor and we know just how savvy and sophisticated their Internet apparatus can be. Perfect trifecta: the ongoing Republican digital campaign, Russian unchecked digital interference and a runaway reelection result that would be hard to contest given the murky subterranean world of digital propaganda.
1
I was fascinated with the photo...imagining that what was really needed were some pencils, a big ole grammar school sized pink eraser, maybe a "big-button" calculator or two...but more importantly, a wider view that showed a couple of youngsters with their grammar or middle school math textbooks peeking out from their backpacks hunkering down to get the work done. Maybe a couple of bags of Skittles would be within reach...
1
Ms. Swisher is right. The Democrats are supposed to be the party of reality, but it seems that much of the leadership is out of touch with the reality of the online world, even though traditional media like the New York Times report widely on this world. The rest of us need to push hard for proper online efforts of every sort. And please, any Democrats with appropriate skills, please be very assertive in volunteering your talents.
Here's a solution: Get the brilliant stragegist/analyst James Carville to oversee online propaganda that would effectively counter the Republican threat. To create the ads, bots, conspiracies hire from among the many thousands of talented film, tv, print, media, design, scriptwriters, actors to create content.
If they weren't so tragically conflict-averse, Democrats would have the wit and brains to win. Until they embrace their inner Spartans, let professionals take over and create content and conspiracy theories that would crush the competition and cause intriguing dissonance in minds only fed so far on a diet of Republican slime. Stop making it like school; it's entertainment. Just make sure you're telling measurable, quantifiable truth. And telling it in interesting, novel ways.
4
I’m an Alta Cocker ( in apparently crude idiomatic Yiddish, a true enough expression that Leo Rosten’s YINGLISH prudishly excludes as I recall)
I do dislike seeing/hearing DJT, but just now did read his SOU speech, and candidly comment that I am not idiot-logically loyal/consistent/understandable
I actually like tonight’s persuasive smooth reassuring rhetoric, and it flows brilliantly imho
DJT is a word artist, and his version reads effectively, his speechwriter hit my spot, and who wouldn’t want pleasantry before bedtime?
By Super Tuesday, please ldon’t worry, I will still vote for an anti DJTer
Bloomberg terminals work too.
1
the main message is... big government is generally incompetent?
beware big government. It didn't work for Stalin, Hugo Chavez, or Mao.
1
Apt analogy. Let the experts do it.
Probably the most disturbing thing I've read in the last several weeks. And, of course, the Democrats won't heed her warning.
This is how the Democrats have a very good chance of loosing to the clown. At every one of his rallies they know based on cell phone data who’s not registered to vote, where they live, if they go to church and how often as well as how to contact them to make sure they register to vote. They have the ability to pick up all of the loose votes in the coming election. The Democrats are clueless as to how to counter it, Bloomberg might be the only one with enough technical savvy to play the same game. Do you want to beat the clown or not? that is the question. They better have the right answer. So far the party seems to be clueless.
2
The difference between Democrats and Republicans in football terms:
The Democrats are the Green Bay Packers. The Republicans are the Belichick/Brady/Kraft Patriots.
The Packers are the good guys who used to win a lot and play by the rules. Everybody wants them to win again, but they rarely do.
The Patriots illegally film the other guys' practices, jam their radios during games, deflate footballs and destroy evidence, and solicit prostitution at strip mall shopping centers. And they get away with it all and usually win.
It is no wonder that Belichick, Brady and Kraft are big Trump supporters.
1
How about we just pool or money with Bloomberg and and Bezos and every other wealthy Democrats and pay Trump to go away. 5 Billion would do it.
2
It's such a bad look and omen for the Democratic party: if they can't manage something as simple as tallying up votes, why believe they can handle the big stuff like overhauling healthcare, or shifting to a lower carbon economy? Ugh. I wonder if part of the problem in the Democratic party has become increasingly wimpy. No one wants to offend, and no one wants to be the mean boss that is sometimes necessary to get things done effectively.
1
If we measure by who screams the loudest conspiracy theories, then yes, Republicans rule the internet
The DNC has been able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory for the last 20 years. Tom Perez is an inept party hack, and the holdovers from the Clinton Machine just won't accept defeat and leave the Party to the real Left. Their tech is inept, their polling is biased, their PR is laughable, and the whole thing sounds hollow because they don't believe in their mission. Halfhearted measures will not move this country back on the good track. They have a solid majority of voters out there and don't seem to have any idea about how to appeal to or inspire them. Truly frustrating to watch.
2
If you are going to talk about the Internet, you really need to talk about the bad actors who have weaponized it.
The Dems have once again handed GOP trolls an issue that will come back to haunt them. In an age where every mistake is immeidately weaponized, errors of this magnitude simply cannot occur. Only a matter of time until someone out the non-existent parallels these 2 companies to Solyndra, and Hannity starts shouting about it.
Will Bloomberg be able to fix the "Republicans Rule the Internet" problem?
First lets be clear on one important thing. Kara Swisher is nog a technologist nor an expert on technology. She is a writer with fast lane pass due to her pedigree and education. She has no direct experience actually running a business or working operationally in one; a blog is not a business.
Secondly, the fact that this happened to a subset of Democrats in Iowa (not exactly a location for the second coming of tech) doesn’t even scratch the surface of the gross illegalities of the Republicans and especially DJT. Having some kind of relationship with a criminal element with bad intentions doesn’t mean you have more expertise at running a government. Indeed we’ve seen how the Human Stain has ruined so many things. All while taking advantage of an economy a DEMOCRAT fixed.
The lack of technological know-how, savvy and expertise is absolutely absent in DC. DJT the doofus has no idea whatsoever how twitter works.
So this false narrative Swisher perpetuates is simply a fairytale to try to convince readers she knows what she’s talking about.
The lost opportunity is not to nit pick but to focus (continuously) on the ills, evils and corruption technology brings and how it can be used positively - when technology is needed.
This Iowa mess could have been easily solved with “low tech”. Thoughtful, intelligent, human interaction. A simpler process and paper ballots. That way the “paper trail” is actually paper. Can’t hack that.
1
As their leader Putin has shown the Trumps, as well as the Republican Party, who have now sanctioned his corruption, you don't need to stand for anything, you just need to denigrate anyone else. Just repeat God, County, Family, and you win. Actual results not required.
At least many Americans are also asking why a state that is 90% white and old is given so much attention.
1
"Sorry, Republicans rule the internet."
An interesting title for a mash-up article leading- where? Too bad the author did not recognize that NYT readers are a bit more discerning.
Point: Begin the article with the obvious technological debacle called the Democratic Caucuses in Iowa. Morph into the initial massive (glitch-ridden) roll-out of ACA's government website then backtrack to the 1990's....then bring us to the Twin Arrested-Development progeny of Donald J. Trump as exhibit "A" of the conspiracy-laden pastime of Republicans online. Thus Republicans "owning" the internet?
The "internet" is so-much-more that this. Billions of data available to enjoy, research, study, learn.
I always vote blue and will again and again
Yet we are failing
I was bullied a lot when young
I learned to fight and never give up even as the bully was choking me out
We lose 2020 and we die
I am now old, OK for me to die
but I pity my Draft Age grandsons
Now get back to fighting
fight dirty
right now!
2
@Lost In America
We will probably lose the 2020 presidential election to Donald Trump.
The Democratic Party is too divided and lacks the effective leadership needed to galvanize a winning voting coalition.
Personally, I don't think Trump winning a second terms is going to be the disaster that people are making it out to be. You may die, but I fully intend to survive.
1
State run Democratic parties are typically managed by back slapping political hacks who are scientific and technological illiterates. Even worse, it rarely dawns on these folks the urgent need for stress tests of any technology. Ed Rendell, who ran the Pennsylvania campaign for Hillary, proudly displayed his flip phone and wondered out loud why anyone would ever need anything more. Of course, Hillary lost PA.
But not too worry. Once Mike becomes really visible in the primaries he will make sure the Democratic party has the very best technology. Mike has a brain that actually works. How refreshing!
1
It's hard to find anything Democrats do well, other than conceal Hillary's emails.
I think we should stop saying countries are trying to manipulate US. It is ideologies that are manipulating us. Ideologies have no boundaries. Not nation states or political entities. You can call an ideology a political entity though, i guess. Trump, Putin Kim are ideologies not countries.
I'm a 70 year old tech challenged Boomer. Could there be a potential fix with keeping voting legit and the mechanisms created for Bitcoin?
Sorry, Russians rule the Republicans who pretend to rule the internet. We will never enjoy a free election again in the USA thanks to Putin's interference in 2016 and his intention to keep Trump on the throne as a President-for-Life, as if we were in post-Peron Argentina.
2
readers have to know that the world of "apps" signifies flat files with "macros", small programs, scripts, triggers, and truly superficial computing, as compared to what is really needed; software databases, running on anykind of PC with enough RAM and storage to process a great deal of data.
An app is nothing. I hate the word app as a note.
Trust an "app" to do anything? Please.
5
The picture is not as bleak as Ms. Swisher paints it. The Republican party is not some all powerful juggernaut, it just seems that way when compared to a incompetent group of Dem contractors and an unfocused group of staffers around their candidates. This app debacle is prime example, any decent college could have developed it as part of a class project /cs, or consultant club project. It all reminds of a political communications class I took as a an undergrad where Frank Luntz was guest professor for a few weeks. I asked him why he had no Dem equivalent, he shrugged and laughed. I don't make my work or my methods a secret. The other side has no focus, no one willing to foot the cost, it's just a revolving door of candidates with no structure.
2
@James
I don't think it's a matter of competence or focus. I'm sure Yang is pretty tech savvy and if Bloomberg isn't, he's surrounded himself with people who are. The difference between the parties is that the Republicans do anything to win, from voter suppression to social media manipulation, and the Democrats do not.
4
No app can compensate for the loss of trust and unifying sense of common goals and purpose at the heart of the Democrats' problems.
The app reflected a new system of reporting votes designed to bring greater transparency to the reporting. The push for transparency was motivated by Bernie Sanders' complaints after the 2016 Iowa primary that his true strength in the state was not revealed by the reporting of single final numbers that gave the victory narrowly to Clinton.
Focusing on the Democrats supposed tech illiteracy and the Republicans and Russians supposed diabolical tech genius is an evasion of the very human political disarray among the Democrats.
1
Do you imagine that they will listen to you now that you and your colleagues are making clear on these pages that Democrats are failing the country and need to change to win? I am reminded of "They never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” which explains my refusal to join this party despite common cause with and genuine respect for Democrats. I very much like what you are doing here and hope you do more and more of it as we approach the election. How likely is direct influence on the results? What will Republicans do anyway? Can Democrats catch up? How and will they? Tell us all about tech this cycle.
2
The truly sad thing is that most people still believe in the virtues of the internet, its obvious and inevitable fatal flaws notwithstanding.
All of us here criticizing the process in Iowa are, nonetheless, complicit, inasmuch we are sitting here complaining on the internet, thus legitimating and effectively encouraging its use. For the sake of personal convenience, everybody still pretends that the good guys are smarter than the bad guys.
As to the Democrats, you have to credit them with doing something the Republicans are completely incapable of accomplishing on their own: re-electing Trump.
4
Maybe Mike Bloomberg can show us how clever he is by taking on the internet. Not a huge fan, but he does have the dough and I hear he’s so smart and attracts good talent. Show us your stuff Mike. Somebody has to bring their A game to this fight.
4
That's why in my country every election is conducted strictly on paper, with oversight over posting of ballots (checks of identiy against voter rolls included, those based on the legal obligation of registering at your place of residence and having an identity card) and counting by a vast number of volunteers and the local administration. Any technology is a black box and the only one in control ist the code writer who usually claims copyright protection. So using technology of any kind that is more complex than a calculator, a typewriter/word processor and a communication system in elections is just inviting malfunctions, manipulations or claims of manipulation. Why would anyone do that?
13
@PE
What seems puzzling in this case is why they haven't been able to compile the information from 1700 locations via fax in 24 hours.
We are talking three numbers from each of 1700 caucus locations.
The Iowa Democrat Party collecting the results could post a spreadsheet on the internet and anyone who participated in a particular caucus could look at the spreadsheet and audit the count. Perfect transparency for a process that was more appropriate for ancient days.
It's not like they have to throw the tally into a saddle bag and have someone ride a horse t deliver it to the state capital.
2
Interesting. When I started online in the 90s, I found such great pleasure in communicating with people across the world, about mutual interests no matter how obscure or arcane. Books, bands, silent films.. you could find your people and discuss things. On BBS's or Usenet or even early AOL or Compuserve (remember that?).
It was fairly placid, but it did indeed cross my mind that one day malevolence online could easily take hold. No one wanted to be a troll- which were actually rare enough to be distinctive then, as opposed to legion infecting our whole information ecosystem. I saw the possibility of such an unfortunate thing back then, but in the 90s felt false assurance that.. really awful people weren't "into computers" then, and could scarcely write coherent sentences. I wasn't that concerned that the internet could turn mean.
Flash forward, and everyone is "into computers", or online, a computer or smartphone is a household appliance. And, another milestone for me was when Russia invaded and annexed Crimea in the 2010s. The UK sites I frequently read were flooded by commenters that were clearly pro-Russian trolls, their obviousness was almost comic, they were so blunt. I should have seen then that this sort of disinformation would come to the US too-of course it would.
And now we're up to our eyeballs in disinformation, a nonstop flood. The 90s really were a kinder, gentler time online. I do miss that wonder and novelty. The Net was a positive good, once.
5
As we say in construction: You can have it done: right, quick or cheap, but you only get to pick two of those. ME? I want elections to be done right (on paper, held securely, until any challenges expire), and if that means a bit more money, so be it. Democracy is worth it. I have no need to know within 24 hours or even 24 day san outcome.
Remember Election 2000? That went on until Dec 13, when stopped by the Supremes. Too bad they did not get that right. Many dead Iraqis and US soldiers wished differently...
8
@SmartenUp
They got it right, which infuriates every Democrat. All of the post election vote recounts, including the one conducted by the NYT, proved that Bush won the election.
Florida certified the vote, and Al Gore, the sore loser, wanted the votes recounted using psychic forces to add Gore votes to ballots where Gore thought the voter had made a mistake.
Scotus had three choices:
1) Allow the Florida certification to stand
2) Invalidate the Florida election and have a recount which would mean that Florida would have no electors when the Electoral college met. With Florida deleted and disenfranchised, Al Gore would win the election.
3) Have Florida recount using normal procedures, which would have the same results as the original count, and also delay the seating of the Electoral College to delay the government transition.
You are correct that had there been five partisan Democrat justices, they would have chosen to disenfranchise all Florida voters because that's their way.
What you are choosing to ignore is that the vote was 7-2 that the recount Al Gore was demanding was illegal and unconstitutional.
So the five justices nominated by Republicans voted to proceed promptly rather than introducing a delay that would result in the same conclusion.
One more reason to vote for Bernie, the only POTUS candidate among the Dems with a pervasive and persuasive online presence. Big enough and savvy enough to both help old ladies cross the street and bust a few lips of anyone who tries to get in the way.
1
This has been at play for almost 20 years... as soon as the internet bloomed in real dollars, a media free-for-all, and it's been a bipartisan pitch, yes, that, and open season for everyone who seized upon its possibilities. Are we surprised? Doh. And how Homer Simpson become not a comedic figure, but a role model. Things changed.
Spot on assessment!
And Swisher wrapping up her column about having the ability to put one's confidence in something akin to Tinder, an app that works, was the coup de grace!
3
The author seems to be a bit biased. The monster search engine Google’s leader, Eric Schmidt, had an office at the Obama White House. He was a proud Democrat, using internal Google knowledge to help Obama during his second election. Having Google’s leader, who had knowledge of how to manipulate queries to gain results that helped him, and Clinton was invaluable. Twitter’s Hastings just plain banned conservative views by chicanery. Facebook took a more neutral stance, and is being attacked for not taking sides. Well over 90% of all contributions by those three behemoths workers donated to Democrats in the last election cycles. They are the people that programs AI results, as well as censoring results. It is impossible for me to grasp what this author assumes as facts. The internet, or more precisely, the people controlling how it is programmed to work are decidedly to the left, far left of average Americans. Computers and web sites may be able to control the information people receive, but.........they still can’t control what people think, or how they will vote.
1
It WORKS? No, it decidedly does not. It’s is a huge part of the reason we are in the mess we are in. I worked in a high level government tech job for 30 years and I’m starting to think the best thing humanity could do with the internet is turn it off and put it back in the box.
4
The heck with Tinder. Voting and counting votes is not a question for modern technology.
Paper ballots which people understand - understand both how to mark them and how they're counted - is both the way to restore confidence in elections (a psychological matter) and to get reliable results (because the recount counts the same things the original count did).
4
@Howard
Good plan. Democrats can lose entire boxes of paper ballots and/or spend a few days fabricating new ones when they have lost when the originals are counted.
In California, when the in-person ballots were counted on election day plus all of the mail in ballots had been received by election day, there were two Republican House members who were in the lead. The elections were not called for several days because the ballots that had been mailed, ostensibly by election day, heavily favored the Democrat candidates. But those harvested ballots must have been honest, because they were made of paper.
I don't think you understand the voting system in California. As an expatriate American and Californian living in Canada, I always vote by mail. The law in California is that any ballot mailed before or on election day must be counted. I am fanatically early, so I always mail my ballot early, but not everyone can do so. As a result valid, legal ballots can arrive for some time after election day. Hopefully, no one would advocate that these valid ballots not be counted. My ballot can get from Canada to Los Angeles County fairly easily, but what Californians who live in places where the mail does not work so efficiently? Please don't assume a conspiracy when a simple fact check will provide an explanation.
"And, as loath as I am to say this, why shouldn’t [Trump's campaign manager, Brad Parscale] create a raging digital fire of confusion and propaganda and microtargeted lies and truths if no one is making rules to stop him?"
Answer: Integrity, something that's sorely lacking in Trump World.
7
@Peter J. Miller
Democrats are still contending that Trump conspired with Russians to win the election. Not even Schiff was willing to put that into the impeachment.
Democrats use the internet to advance their lies. They are still contending that Trump was trying to influence the 2020 election using Ukraine.
Think about it. That Hunter Biden corruptly profited from his father's influence as VP is public knowledge. What possible political benefit would there be for Trump to get the Ukraine to confirm something that was public knowledge?
You will go to your grave arguing that since there is not US or Ukrainian law that prohibits the Biden princeling from accepting tribute from a Ukrainian oligarch so it's irrelevant.
John Kerry and I, along with most voters, think that although it may be legal, it is so sleazy it disqualifies Joe Biden for the Democrat nomination, which Iowans seem to be confirming.
There is a very low-tech explanation for why the Republicans are running the digital table so far. They are the only ones who truly and whole-heartedly embrace manipulating the public, which after all is mostly what social media is good for. Democrats are from time to time guilty of it too, in their own way, but it gives them a bad conscience, so they don't do it very well.
13
After seeing our legislators follow a process set by the founders, I wonder if we shouldn't keep pace. Paper and pencil votes only?
I've been through several large tech builds at 3 large corporations. The ones managed by the power players all failed because they had no clue what goes into building tech infrastructure. The ones where we found the smartest people to manage them all worked.
From what I read, the Dems hired political operatives from the Clinton campaign to build this app and other software - basically they hired politically connected people who haven't a clue on how to manage a tech build. The DNC needs to look externally and find the smartest and experienced tech person that isn't looking for the job to lead the tech side of things. Then they need to hire Jim Messina to get all of the rest of their ducks in a row. It's time for the DNC to grow up and get some hard core leadership.
7
Could we just imagine what USA Healthcare would be like if there’d have been a seamless rollout of Healthcare.gov? Perhaps it could have become the juggernaut for our citizens desperately needing affordable health insurance. A program with such enormous public support no one would dare touch it. Instead it’s become a punching bag for the right wing in this nation.
Add to this a disastrous vote tallying app. Guys we need to improve our performance here. Our voters deserve better than this. Our country deserves better than this.
5
@Michijim
There were several problems with the rollout. The federal government lost credibility for its incompetence.
At the last minute, Obama grandmothered non compliant health insurance policies, which meant that the exchange pools were deprived of around four million healthy participants who were permitted to keep their old policies. [This was in addition to those who were grandfathered.]
Some state insurance commissioners would not allow the grandmothering, so their pools remained partially viable, not having lost 40% of their potential pool, a group that was wealthy and healthy enough to have had health insurance before Obamacare.
Conveniently, the media never reported to the public the disparity between the states that had responsible insurance commissioners and those that didn't. They never wanted to acknowledge that Obama had done far more damage to Obamacare and its future viability than any inaction on the part of the Republicans. the grandmothering was not eliminated until 2016.
Do you remember the results of the 3rd Demo debate? IOW, this too shall pass.
2
Kara, since almost the time that IT dinosaurs ruled the earth, there were – and still are – two fundamentally different zeitgeists to software acquisition…
One is end-user – often, but not always, consumer-level…
There, the victor is the one whose code runs as close to flawlessly and instantly as possible…
Even as Sergey and Larry cut their coding teeth on optimized search algorithms – they knew that minimizing end-user latency would open up exponentially-large new worlds to them…
Mark knew that lower latency was the key to displacing MySpace – and that it’d let FB compete with Google for revenue, once Google eventually figured out how to make revenue…
Jeff – his intergalactic-scale storefronts and back-office are whole comments unto themselves…
The other is classical competitive bidding and corporate procurement…
There, the victor is the one whose code is as obfuscated and entrenched as possible…
And, at that point – rather than striving for instant and flawless – the light goes on…
The realization that code that barely works and is years behind the need-curve is as exponentially-lucrative as that street-vendor-food consumer-level stuff…
2 ½ words:
Health Care IT
But what about AI – code for bots, written by bots…
Once you get away from the deep platforms that A, A, G, and M use for their – consumer-level – transaction and subscription services…
All gilding the lily – training botnets beyond diminishing returns…
But – lucrative gig work, if you can find it…
1
Ms. Swisher describes another example of Democrats' failure to use GOP tactics against them. Here is what I've learned from convicts and from years of theater. You makes audiences cringe when you're Sydney Carton on the steps of the guillotine, or a tied up Sebastian stuck full of arrows from an organized gang of dirty fighters. Stop it. Create dissonance. Play dirtier, pipe 'em first or if you must be smarter, set a boobytrap, but loudly tell the truth, the quantifiable, demonstrable truth. Otherwise you're typecast as the martyred punk.
3
Kara Swisher,
Please run for office!
@Tracy About 98% of Google, Twitter, and Facebook employees that program algorithms are flaming liberals. Fortunately, even though they control the information we can get on the internet, they only get one vote apiece. Does Swisher want to give them even more power, or award these employees with the decision to just elect Democrats?
Fox fake internets feeds rule for now. Trumpian GOP foreign and domestic bad guys win this week. Real Republicans are in hibernation.
D. Trump, businessman, politician, 45th president of the USA often used several pseudonyms. Fake profiles. Scripted.
'John Barron', 'John Baron', 'John Miller' & 'David Dennison'. DJT often spoke to the media under the guise of these fake personas.
Trump's acting persona was an open not-secret within the Trump Organization, & NYC media circles.
NY editors recalled calls from John Barron so common that they were a recurring joke on the city desk.
Fred Trump used the pseudonym Mr. Green in business dealings.
DT started rumors about his running for president in the 1980s. He got Barbara Walters & Oprah et al asking about it & spreading that meme years ago.
Don exaggerated everything incognito. He won’t let you see his real financial records, 8+ years P&L statements. Everything he says is fake.
His debts and liabilities won’t ever be revealed by John Barron, William Barr, Sean Hannity, Fox Friends or Steve Mnuchin...Tabloid hype over decades propelled him. Any evil faction can manipulate and influence him now.
Trump won't stand next to his rarely photographed son Barron. Shy & handsome young Barron is 3 inches taller than Trump at 13 years old. BT needs a nickname. Barry like Barack was when his age? To separate him from the Trump fake alias he was named after, 'John Barron'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudonyms_of_Donald_Trump
3
Blockchain tech, not dating app tech
I disagree about dating app technology as the best high tech solution.
If any high tech solution is proposed, which should be a complimentary backup — not as a replacement to paper voting, tallies should be in peer-to-peer blockchain technology.
Voters may lose anonymity of who votes for whom, but that seems a small price to pay considering the alternative.
2
I’m a retired techie: degrees in physics, math, and electrical engineering, with lots of computer programming along the way. Spent my whole career in science R&D, including smart munitions (not so proud of that one), telecomm, and then climate science.
I don’t think the Republicans/right-wingers are any better, at all, at tech _per se_. What they *are* really good at is using the available tech—mainly social media for (generally) younger voters and Fox News Network for older voters—to stoke fear, suspicion, doubt, and division. It’s Psych 101—or, in the evil-genius genre of Roger Ailes, “Fear, then titillate; fear, then titillate.” Rinse and repeat.
Dems have to have a simple, emotional message to capture the electorate in 2020. I wish I could tell you what that is, but I’ll leave it to the political strategists and left-brain thinkers to come up with it. Time is short; do it now!
6
The 1% are going to be rich. . .
Uh, richer.
3
Well, it helps to have all those Russian hackers working day and night for you. Now that we have established that it’s OK to enlist the aid of foreign powers in one’s election campaign, maybe the Democrats can gain parity via aid from the Chinese. It may be “inappropriate”, but it doesn’t rise to the level of impeachment and removal from office.
5
@The Dude
I cannot "recommend" this, but it is a perfectly valid point. Maybe we should, but what country(s) would support an agenda of sustainable policy? China?
Good Lord, the sky is falling again! I find cranky skepticism to be useful here. Let us avoid the pundits' temptation to make absurd leaps into the void only to be the first to say something ostensibly "insightful" or at least novel. Iowa is not America. The virtual world is not the real world. Let's avoid "breathless." Just wait and see.
1
Good Lord, the sky is falling again! I find cranky skepticism to be useful her Let us avoid the pundits' temptation to make absurd leaps into the void only to be the first to say something ostensibly "insightful" or at least novel. Iowa is not America. The virtual world is not the real world. Let avoid "breathless." Just wait and see.
Your discussion of the need to be tech savvy reminds me why I support Mike Bloomberg.He established a media, software and data company that is known worldwide.He can out-compete Trump when it comes to media advertising.In addition to being politically experienced he is a large player in the world of data -he can beat the Republicans at their game of media manipulation-he will call them out in a nanosecond.
7
Democrats are the tech savvy party. It’s those other classic problems such as: entrenched old school management, moving too slowly vis a vs the competition , cronyism, lack of accountability, and limited diversity at the decision making level
As a volunteer for one of the 2020 front runners I’m seeing how technology combined with discipline and organizational skills can work wonders- and I’m sixty years old
While I agree with the larger point there is definitely something not right about all of this. It’s been a day. All caucuses had a count. Someone at every caucus knows this count. Surely they could all call in, email, even fax these counts to a central location which could provide a total. What am I missing here?!?
5
Being a tech arsonist would only work until there is no society left to burn. Trump is happy to burn; his followers think he has their back because he's giving them some of the early profits from the fires that will eventually consume everyone's home.
5
Washington State....vote by mail. All the paper trails are there and you have 3 weeks to make your choice. Simple, clean, honest and non-tech
7
What a horrendous mess. The democrats came off looking like rank amateurs in this. You have to know that Trump and the Republican party are loving this. Just pathetic.
4
I've done remote data collection systems. My system had extensive testing. In this case, people were being trained on the app during the caucus.
Let me repeat that: People were being trained on the app during the caucuses.
If I had managed this, there would have been training sessions 1 week before, a remote tech team with open lines to each polling station (using some kind of video-chat technology), and a complete dry run involving actual people.
Clearly this was not done. What morons these people are.
7
Iowa Caucus: Yokel theater.
3
"This reminds me of another Democratic tech snafu: the debut of the glitch-laden and over-budget Obamacare website, technically called HealthCare.gov, in 2013."
I immediately thought of the same thing last night. What's abundantly clear, however, is the need for simple, one man-one vote systems based on paper balloting.
Not complex algorithms designed to reveal, God knows what. The IOWA caucuses have passed their expiration. It may have been quaint at a time, but not in the digital age. Run the primary like all the others, and while you're at it, have a series of super-Tuesdays, not this homogenous state (and that includes New Hampshire) hogging their status as first primary states in the union.
They don't resemble modern-day America, any more than Trump resembles Abraham Lincoln. Get up to speed, DNC, and keep it simple.
1
People seem to want a scapegoat, and tech is available.
But wait. Maybe the Iowa snafu is a blessing in disguise.
Our primary system isn't perfect. And the lack of clarity in Iowa gives us a chance to take another look at Mike Bloomberg.
We should give Bloomberg a chance. After all, we not only need to choose a candidate but we need to get the issue right, and perhaps debates including Bloomberg can shed light on key issues.
Thus Sanders gives a persuasive stump speech. But some people are afraid that the details might not work. There is the issue of the wealth tax, which might be unconstitutional and didn't work out well in France. Debates could clarify this issue.
There's another murky issue: Essentially all of the candidates promised to extend health care to illegal immigrants in the first debate. This was a gotcha question by the media, and nobody actually answered the question in any depth.
Here's the question that the candidates should have been asked: Do you favor "open borders" or do you want to limit immigration, and if so, how much?
I don't think we yet know the answer to that question for any of the candidates.
So more debates are needed. In short, we need a reset after Iowa.
And the media needs to stop shirking its jobs.
Campaign slogans and superficial thinking elect the worst presidents. We need a decision process which encourages deeper thinking which leads to realistic conclusions.
The public needs to be better informed.
3
You say that “campaign slogans...elect the worst presidents” but I can’t think of a single campaign slogan from any of the Democratic candidates. “MAGA” for Trump in 2016 but have no idea what he’s using this time around either. Campaign slogans do not seem to be relevant.
What rubbish!!! There is more anti Trump liberal raging on the internet than anything else.
3
Everyone has forgotten the Mitt Romney EDay app disaster of 2012. Even though the NYTimes covered it back then. It was called Orca and it was a failure. The final nail in his campaign.
But it's not about the him or the Dems or GOP or any party, or the ages of people involved, or the devices, or who writes the software.
It's because voting day software is only used once every 2 years, and it is mission critical software, with no time for training or failure.
You can't have hundreds of thousands of new users downloading and learning new software all at once without it crashing.
Try to imagine this happening with a car, or a new cell phone, or a videogame or banking.
No such thing as "one day extreme stress use" in any industry, except politics.
2
The issue for Democrats is NOT whether Shadow Inc. can properly code an app that actually works.
The issue IS whether Shadow Inc. is a woke company with appropriate diversity.
The Democratic Party has issues.
3
FileMaker Pro, formatted easily by any number of independent FileMaker entrepreneurs, could have handled this for a few thousand bucks. The Dems cemented their image as bumblers with this one.
When do we start pointing fingers at Perez? There is someone theoretically managing the DNC, no?
1
Another reason Republicans can be proud of their achievements.
2
@YFJ
If spreading lies and confusion is good, sure, be proud.
I prefer truth.
One of the most important points made here was the dirty little secret that NYT readers don't like to talk about: Silicon Valley was instrumental in helping President Obama get elected in 2008, and he knew it.
He repaid the favor by allowing Silicon Valley to run rampant for eight of the most important and consequential years of the Digital Revolution.
The damage to Democracy and Capitalism that was done during his tenure is staggering, and this will be judged as one of his most serious failings.
6
Excellent column - it really gets to the heart of the Democrats’ digital disadvantage. A couple of additional points worth noting:
- Acronym and Shadow’s ties to the Democratic consultant class lays bare a pretty pernicious type of corruption that infects the party: once you’re part of the clique, you will get a place at the trough. It’s very easy to rebrand yourself a digital guru once you’ve had a non-trivial role in a Democratic campaign or administration. It’s essentially “who you know” nepotism, and it’s prevalent throughout the party. It’s why an untested app by a shady company is at the center of this debacle.
- and it’s also worth noting that part of the GOP advantage is their utter shamelessness and contempt for the truth. Cambridge Analytica, misleading Facebook ads, etc. When you don’t care about truth, or right and wrong, it’s easy to eke out an advantage at any time.
1
We don't want Iowa to be so powerful? Stop making it seem so powerful that it represents the entire Democratic Party!
1
Only one Democratic candidate is tech savvy enough...Bloomberg.
2
The Frankenstein that technology created is uncontrollable.
Having launched 100s of tech start-ups I can say only a handful or so .were ready for prime time and from that maybe 2-3 actually became successful.
While the failure rate was high, I did make a lot of money in the process and I’m sure the operatives behind this did as well.
BYW, What happened to developers “eating their own dog food” prior to launching ...
Fire the managers of the app fiasco. I’ve been a Dem since I could vote for PUSA, in 1988. I will NOT continue to support a party that doesn’t understand the Internet-based political system we now live in. If the Trumpkins burn it all down, then maybe that’s the change the world needs.
We get the government we deserve.
2
Yes, but the ability to read has to count for something.
1
Yes, sadly, Republicans operatives have web ploys figured out. And, they've adopted wholesale the worst of the web - trolling, hating, deflecting, confusing - as essentially their core party program. There's no policy left in the Republican party, just 14-year-olds on their beds whose only goal is "sticking it to the libs".
1
Did the Democrats fully test the app? Doesn’t sound like it. Oh well, still looking forward to Super Tuesday, which actually matters.
1
The Democratic Party has old, tired leadership. Until they get rid of dinosaurs like Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, and anything named Clinton, they will never counter the juggernaut that is the Republican marketing and media machine.
3
Seems 'funny" to me too that a couple of HRC's former campaign workers created the untested app and sold it to a few places including to Buttigieg.
https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-02-04/clinton-campaign-vets-behind-2020-iowa-caucus-app-snafu
No votes got lost. The Iowa caucus is a hand written paper system. The app was to transmit the numbers which they used to do by phone, along with a picture of the worksheet the number was added up on. The cards used and unused along with the worksheet goes to the local precinct then up from there. Which I assume means they check the maths at some point.
1
The Democrats have plans for everything. They are just not very good plans.
4
Turn it off America. Facebook, Twitter etc…are really toxic and/or terrific for cat videos and photos of your grandchildren. No one cares about my opinion, your opinion or Karen’s opinion. How about you go back to PAYING for your news feed. Let’s think about this for a second. If Facebook charged a fee for the mindless scrolling with the relentless ads, you didn’t ask for, they’d be out of business tomorrow. Turn it off.
6
Amen. I’ve been off of Facebook and Twitter since Election Day 2016. One of my better decisions I must say. These platforms have no value other than to degrade political and social discourse. They are garbage. The sooner more people abandon them, the sooner our nations wounds will heal.
3
You mean that Tech should not be accepted blindly and that Quality matters? That there might be something to those nasty rumors about Alexa, Ring, your high end TV, and your refrigerator all listening to everything you say and do then selling that info to God know who? That social media is not really there for our benefit and that we might be the product??? You mean to tell me that mistakes in code could have real world consequences, like perhaps bringing down a jet or two, or allowing people to hack into your car's operating system and drive it into a ditch?
How dare the Tech Companies require me to thing about benefits versus costs for their latest toys and systems!!
2
If the Dems lose, we all lose--should not be framed as about being about 'them'--but rather about the fate of life on Earth---let's get real here--our two-party thinking is primitive and hyper-focuses on winners and losers in a shrunken venue.
And guess what? Bernie and Liz have an app for national health care. It will work equally well.
Trump will have a field day if one of these two gets the nomination.
And Joe, bless his heart, is clueless.
Please MB, step it up! We need you now, more than ever.
Apparently the Shadow app the Democrats used wasn't in the Apple store. It appears you had to jailbreak your phone to install it.
With all of the concerns about hacking and security, are the Democrats crazy? They had the precinct captains bypass Apple vetting (not to mention DHS) and their phone security to install an app that was virtually untested. They provided no training or practice runs prior to the caucuses. Insanity!
3
Your analysis is so superficial. Republicans don't "own the Internet." Facebook is crazy and connected to conservatives. But Democrats are savvy too––look at Obama's 2008 campaign that used the Internet effectively––and probably aren't innocent. Your supposed confidence that this is all an error, laughably backed up by bad Silicon Valley app releases, belies the controversial results in 2016 in Iowa, when Clinton won 6 straight coin flips, for a 1.5% chance, to take what was a tie with Bernie. There is something corrupt there and refusing to look at it plainly is an abdication of journalistic duty. Also the Buttigieg ties to Shadow Inc. are factual and reported by The Washington Post.
It seems clear that only one political party treats elections as warfare...and it isn't the Democrats.
We are already engaged -- and have been for some time now -- in a new kind of civil war. And the Democrats still seem to think this is a friendly competition between political rivals, while the opposition will literally do or say anything to win.
I still admire Democratic restraint and principles; if there was a shred of honor or integrity on the other side, it might have a chance at changing something.
But when someone is charging at you and swinging an axe, polite discourse will not help you win. It's time to fight fire with fire, or watch the dystopia of Republistan become reality.
1
Between you and Charlie Warzel, we get a grim picture of our tech future. It’s busted. And, indeed, the Republicans are on top of things, mostly (their hidebound elders leave it to the kids to manage while they get Supreme Court justices approved). Elsewhere I read that old Clinton hands are behind Acronym (here’s one: F.A.I.L — Forget About Iowa, Losers) which means it’s even more suspect. Part of the issue is that too many hands get into the pot and bringing up the Obamacare Website failure is an excellent case study. While I wasn’t in the room where it happened, I imagine it had to be bid out to any number of start-ups that had never done that kind of work before, but they had a heart full of “hope” and a head full of “love”.
You can blame Iowa, but if these “consultants” are all that’s available to the campaigns and the DNC, there’s real trouble ahead. Amid the chaos comes the re-election of the President.
2
Tinder might work. But if they use Grindr not only does it work, but with all the bots and ads they foist on users they could make extra money too! Which, based on fund raising efforts so far, they will need in the fall election...
It doesn't matter. This topic is profoundly petty. Civilization won't survive climate change. That is the bottom line.
I have worked in numerous corporations and every time the IT departments rolled out some new system it was a failure, because they didn't know who the customer was or what it was being designed to do. I would always be up full time the next day enumerating the glitches. It's stupid that the DNC thought this would be any different. You don't test a system the day it is launched. We need to stick to traceable paper ballots. This is an embarrassment for the Democratic Party. They've had a high profile campaign in a state that has been given outsized priority in a system that needs to be reformed to reflect the 21st century...and not by designing an app.
1
Why should your democracy not rely on dating app technology?
Because no one wants to date your President.
Or maybe we could consume books - I have no prejudice against the electronic or audio versions - related to Nazi propaganda and/or the increasing popularity of far-right parties and authoritarian solutions across the globe.
Misinformation, disinformation and outright lies - no matter how disseminated - are the tools of fascism. If that is what we want, the 2020 elections could be a large step in that direction.
Technology exacerbates a problem inherent within the minds of the people.
1
The trolling in this case is well deserved. The disastrous launch will be remembered more than who won.
4
Sorry, the midterms showed me that they do not rule the internet.
1
I guess they should have asked the Russians for help. Worked for the Republicans.
1
New Journalism:
I am biased and hate this but here’s the facts.
I’ll settle for that.
Better than :
I am not biased and here are the manipulated facts to support my bias (which I refuse to admit).
This is the whole ball of wax. It matters not about ideas, morality, or anything else. It is all about mind control. Don't anyone kid themselves, the future is here. The manipulation of big data is now the paramount ideal in controlling the reigns of power. That is how Trump got elected. Brad Parscale is as amoral as those he works for. He and they, will stop at nothing until they completely own you.
2
I remember healthcare.gov being a total farce of journalist over-reaction playing directly into reactionary hands that then ultimately didn't matter even slightly over the long hall. Interesting you'd bring it up here, with out any sense of self-reflection.
1
Kara,
Good thing Mom doesn't read the New York Times...
Otherwise great article. Tech arsonists. So true.
Jeff
1
I hate to agree-the trolls that rule the Internet are a scary bunch, but the Democrats have to learn to be just as nasty to stop them.
Sad, if true.
The app worked as intended to sow chaos about the actual results of Bernie winning.
From another NYTimes article:
“Even before Monday, there were other concerns with the app itself, which was developed by a private firm called Shadow. Cybersecurity experts worried that it had not been vetted, tested at scale, or even shown to independent experts before being introduced in Iowa.”
Gerard Niemira, a veteran of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, is the head of Shadow
Via @TheGrayzoneNews
“Behind the app that delayed Iowa’s voting results is a dark money operation funded by anti-Sanders billionaires. Its top donor, Seth Klarman, is a Buttigieg backer who has dumped money into pro-settler Israel lobby groups.”
1
Mayor Mike knows tech
Kara Swisher: THIS is news? The GOP Propaganda Machine -- featuring the Fox Opinion network, Breitbart, Daily Caller, The Hill, (more than 95-98 percent of the time),human phlegm Rush Limbaugh, and on and on and on -- has been in operation since the late 1980s.
And the way it worked, in concert, with the Russian propaganda machine, during the 2016 elections was a dead give away that the GOP's chops on the internet were greater.
Republicans have been very adept at lying -- without a hint of shame -- for literally decades. No surprise, then, that they have mastered one of the chief avenues of lies and disinformation.
1
This stuff is often hard to read or download, places put out “downloads” that are infathonable ; downloaded on their phones, no less. A bad break for the Dems., but not indicative of terminal stupidity, no. The Reps. are cheap shotting them if they make noise about this.
A story about the guy running the Dubuque site has been interesting. He entered the first round, but there are multiple rounds.
When he entered the second round, the program said that there was an undercount. A person had left. The count was 1 short.
Clearly, the developers did not account for this OBVIOUS and COMPLETELY NORMAL event.
What idiots.
Who can trust these results? Let this be a warning for November's election. If Trump loses, he'll claim malfunction, rigged, fake, you name it, and he will not concede. Who's to say what really happened in Iowa? Was it a bad app or some bad apples? Doubt we'll ever know.
37
@Eileen McGinley Bad app with insufficient testing. If you aren't sure, you will be supporting trump's scare mongering theories. Talk to some app developers, they can all tell you similar stories about launching an app before it was fully tested. I worked as a project manager launching new apps and testing (or lack thereof, will kill you everytime).
17
@Eileen McGinley
You sound like Trump. "Was it a bad app or some bad apples?"
We all know who is the bad apple--he's in the Oval Office...
13
Eileen McGinley, what happened last night was that there were technical problems getting the vote totals collected from each precinct. They found out some of the reported numbers were incorrect and there were issues with both the reporting app and the phone records.
No voting data was lost. All the information is being verified now with an excess of caution. The delay was only a day or two, when the day or two will not matter in the slightest.
Stop reading things into this. Of course you can trust these results. Of course if Donald Trump loses he will leave office. People are human. Mistakes happen. We move on. Time to do that.
3
Ever since the Trump era began all we've heard is that Democrats should govern because they're the intelligencia, the educated people who know the truth, that Republicans are a bunch of weed-chomping farmers misled by a big-city con man. Now, all of a sudden, we find out the Republicans are the tech-savvy smarties who control the internet and, if Democrats aren't careful, will soon control everything else, too! Come on, Dems, quit looking for excuses external to yourselves why you don't appeal to the voters. Even a farmer can tell you the reason you don't--your policy proposals are too far to the left; never mind the internet, get to the center and win!
44
@Ronald B. Duke - Democrats won 6 of th last 7 presidential elections. The Dem's numbers in past Congressional elections far surpass any republican "election wins." The United States of America is not a democratic republic any longer. We are truly a banana republic which uses party twists, judicial appointments lacking integrity and gerrymandered re-districting. All in order to hold power regardless of our once proud nation's now dissipated stature.
14
@Ronald B. Duke - these so-called tech-savvy Republicans refuse to even acknowledge that climate change is real. Better hope they aren't the intelligentsia.
2
@Ronald B. Duke The Republicans are so far from the center, it’s just a dot in the rear view mirror.
1
Well the NYT told us today how many billions the tech industry makes. I wouldn't expect anything they do to work, for average Joe so why would the Iowa app work.
Technology is here just to steal your privacy and make money off of clicks. nothing to see here the same old vulture capitalism at works.
31
Republicans have domiated the sleaziest side of politics for at least the last 40 years. Their domination of the sleaziest side of the internet is no surprise. It is who they are.
103
Social media have broken our society. It happened before we knew it, and I see no path back. Gloomy times.
1
Thanks.
Trump still trumps the daily media, and as Democrats ramble on.
Iowa is a wake up call for Democrats to start communicating.
Perhaps Democrats could have idea contests, to wake up.
For example, I suggest the use of songs, like "Democracy"
"Democracy is coming to the USA" (Leonard Cohen)
Instead of endlessly rambling on, I hope Democrats rally.
"Democracy is coming to the USA:
1
@H Pearle that song is about how america is actually not democratic at all and obliterates the marginalizes but the old, jaded marxist (cohen) still hopes one day that democracy will actually come to america instead of the racist sham of a republic it always has been
1
Collecting the Iowa Caucus data could have been done easily, quickly and inexpensively using either Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets on a completely secure cloud drive.
No one needed to code an app. InAPPropriate.
(I am not an employee and/or shareholder of either Microsoft or Google.)
7
The "establishment" Democrats are way behind, ie turning down embedded help from Facebook and Twitter social media was a really bad move on the part of the DNC/Clinton insiders during the 2016 primaries. (I guess you don't want any outsiders inside the DNC, watching... even if you really, really could use expert help that is being freely given to your Republican opponents. )
Meanwhile, the Bernie Sanders campaign is tremendously Internet savvy! They have raised more online donations, and have the largest base in the history of the party! They also created their own caucus-reporting ap that DID NOT FAIL to track the results coming out of Iowa!
5
@mjpezzi no see the thing is thats bernies "internet army" which "does more harm than good" and is a big liability to be mentioned in hushed tones...
1
I'd say that some of the best developers out there likely trend towards conservative views, not red pill but definitely in the neighborhood of Intellectual Dark Web. It's those personality archetypes I expect very through unit testing and validation to happen for these apps.
2
Many of the comments on this article advocate paper ballots, which my state has used successfully for years. Today, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported that Oregon Elections Director Steve Trout said: “Our vote-by-mail system provides a lot of security advantages. We’ve been doing this for over 20 years now, and there are a lot fewer places where someone could get in and target our elections.” Not only is it more secure, it’s so easy for us voters to use!
25
I remember a series of stories after 2012 about the decisive edge the Obama people had on Romney's team. They had better data, people from Google, better use of social media - and better apps. Remember "Orca" the Romney election day killer app to track voters that flopped?
My point is maybe it's just that incumbents are better at tech because they are just better prepared and have more resources.
1
I think Ms. Swisher is leaving out an important part of the story when she criticizes the ill-prepared roll-out of the Obamacare website. My understanding at the time was that the Obama administration had to rush to release the program to the public because of a concerted and one could say highly cynical effort on the part of the Republicans to undo the program before it could be implemented.
21
My wife and daughter are swimmers. In every competitive meet, there are multiple back-ups to verify the winner. First the touch pad, then timers (two) on every lane, each equipped with a stopwatch and plunger to mark finish time, and finally finish judges (again two), who record the order of finish among the swimmers if all else fails. The answer isn’t just a return to paper ballots (I’m from Chicago and remember when boxes of these might turn up in the trunk of an abandoned car well after the election). Instead, it’s about ensuring that every election is supported by multiple means of verifying all ballots cast to determine the true winner.
40
This article did not seem to have much to do with the title, "Republicans Winning the Internet."
A couple of problems:
Government doesn't have the money to "do it right."
If this was Silicon Valley, they would roll out a Beta, and it might flop in Iowa, and they would fix it on the fly, and it wouldn't result in a crisis.
6
@Thomas agree that "Government doesn't have the money to "do it right"....that is when it is wasting it on a border wall, interest payments on the debt, detention facilities for immigrants and unnecessary spending in the military.
10
@Thomas agree that "Government doesn't have the money to "do it right"....that is when it is wasting it on a border wall, interest payments on the debt, detention facilities for immigrants, unnecessary spending in the military, and ferrying around a crooked potus and his grifter family back and forth on their little weekend jaunts to their fake Winter White House (Maralago).
1
@Lilly
Secret love dinners that trump has with Facebook and the other gods of technology.
Its all about getting over by technology gods in love with Putin,Saudi's and the chinese
1
This minor fiasco is a huge opportunity for a competent tech shop with PR issues--Google/Alphabet comes to mind--to buy a lot of goodwill with relatively little effort. Make a clean, easy-to-understand, and above all trackable/verifiable vote tallying system, and provide it as a public service, along with tools to make it easy for any doubting third party to cross-check the numbers against paper records.
16
@M. And you would TRUST Google with all that data, hidden on their servers?
One word: PAPER!
The remarkable thing is no one ever wants to compare these internet snafus to, well, the private sector. Have you tried to use a banking app lately? How about booking a flight on an airline? And, these are comparatively simple operations!
15
@Mack
Just used the Amtrak (desktop) ticketing system for the first time. I have seen bad website design before, but they deserve an award for incompetence.
Cannot imagine using an app version!
Bravo, Ms. Swisher. I like your line, "right now being the best tech arsonist is what rates." True, my fellow readers will be repulsed by your words. There is a righteousness about Democrats that makes them trip on their feet but your statement reflects the world we are in, rather than the one Democrats want it to be. They need something to work if they want to win. Republicans are winning the internet. In addition to being ruthlessly amoral, they are also pragmatic, picking and choosing what works best for them. Tradition-bound Democrats could learn about that. Perhaps the quaint tradition of the Iowa caucus will be reason to challenge old ways of thinking. Or maybe another lost election will do so.
16
There is a period after the adoption of any new technology where it looks like everything about the shiny thing is wonderful and good. Then reality strikes and the least moral among us exploits the new technology for their benefit until society steps in and regulates.
We are forever finding excuses to not regulate this invasive, powerful category of technologies and so the exploitation continues. For all that's good and holy, may Congress (many of whom evidently benefit from this unmitigated exploitation) step in and get busy regulating.
5
@Jason
She's not revealing the full story. Look at the LA times article about who made the app. It is probably about being overly trusting of people who had connections that caused the problem. But it still looks very bad considering recent headlines about a nice old lady saying mean things about a candidate.
1
Paper ballots.
Secured.
Hand counted.
Secured.
Recounted.
Secured.
Democracy is much more important than half-baked technology purchased for-profit programmers by cash-starved states run by politicians who lack the expertise to evaluate the grossly flawed technology they're buying.
Paper ballots.
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@Socrates
I agree with paper ballots. However, technical expertise does exist within local governments. Professionals do understand what the government is buying. Whether they can effectuate adequate implementation in a political landscape is a different question. In my experience, the answer is mostly no. You can lead a horse to water...
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@Socrates
YEA! And let’s go back to horse and buggy, and perhaps use smoke signals to communicate. Anyone know Morse code? It’s a winner!
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@Socrates Paper ballots sound fine, but how about those hanging chads from 2000 ?
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Oh yea the scammy way a lot of "tech" stuff seems to operate making a lot of money often for nothing is due to republican deregulation. It was not possible to steal like that before deregulation and the gutting of the Civil Service.
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Actually it was due to the DNC "advising" State parties to use the app..Which is owned by Democrat political operatives from previous campaigns. I'm sure they were owed favors. They needed to be paid. In the DNC, loyalty trumps competence. They hired and paid their incompetent friends rather then attempting to hire professionals. Blaming Republicans is kinda silly.
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I remember back when scientists were telling us that alpha chimpanees rule the chimpanzee world. But as science progressed and this alpha behavior was more closely examined, it turns out that the pattern of bullying and aggression perpetrated by the alpha chimps does little to impress the beta and lower chimps or influence the decisions they make as a community.
Once you see someone as acting out of aggression, domination and self-interest, how can you take that person seriously again?
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I cannot help but suspect that the GOP has more money and therefore can hire the more qualified people, than the Democrats. Also egalitarian thinking among state Democratic parties may also lead to unqualified or inexperienced people, rather than seasoned experts, making technology decisions at the local party level. The Democrats need to spend like crazy on social media and internet dominance in the 2020 cycle. I am concerned the Democrats are not up to that job.
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@AgentG
"egalitarian thinking among state Democratic parties may also lead to unqualified or inexperienced people, rather than seasoned experts"
Can we expect the same if they run the national government?
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@Phil Just about anyone is better than the current White House dweller.
@AgentG - Clinton raised twice as much money as Trump in the 2016 election, so Dem lack of money wasn't the issue.
Egalitarian thinking is a more likely excuse, but Occam's Razor suggests that rank incompetence is the most likely cause.
Look no further than the idiot who named their Democratic digital company: Shadow Inc., now outpacing Fraud Guarantee in the competition for worst company name ever!
congress needs to jump on this right now. maybe they can add this to the articles of impeachment before tomorrows vote. we need some impartial statesmen, like schiff, hillary and james comey to get to the bottom of this iowa debacle. i am sure congress can spend $35 million on another investigation.
and this is the party that is going to save us from another 4 years of trump? at this point trump wins all the electoral votes except california and new york.
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IF we want to wrestle back our Democracy or Republic, then we need to implement these things:
1. MANDATORY voting (100+ million sit out any election)
2. Paper ballots everywhere
3. Mail in
4. National voting holiday In lieu of mailing in.
5. Publicly financed election
6. 6 to 9 weeks long for campaigning
7. Reenact and strengthening of Voting Rights act
8. END Citizen's United
9. Open party primaries
10. ALL candidates release tax returns.
Do the above and we MIGHT have a chance.
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@FunkyIrishman
I could only agree with mandatory voting if "None of the above" were an option.
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@QED
Aye, that can be a choice, but with mandatory voting, there would be automatically a split of the two major parties into at least 5 or 6 viable factions. (much like European or parliamentary systems)
They would have to work together to get things done , while at the same time money men and singular interests would lose their power. (causing much of the gridlock of today)
If you take away the power of money or essentially low taxes and loopholes, then you give back power to the people/masses.
A good thing.
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@FunkyIrishman
Ya got my vote :-)
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As we say in the tech industry, there appears to be a glitch somewhere between the chair and the keyboard.
Look: your average 50+ political volunteer isn't going to understand how to use any app without slow repetitive training. They'll figure it out eventually. However, you can't drop MiniVAN in their laps and expect them to go out and canvas effectively. So too with caucus software.
That doesn't mean Republicans are winning the digital war. That means Republicans don't need to organize a competitive caucus in 2020 using digital software. One of the many incumbent advantages. Just wait until 2024, especially if Trump loses.
"But I be done seen 'bout ev'rything
When I see a elephant fly."
Republicans are currently better at manipulating people who don't understand technology using technology. There's a big difference.
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@Andy Will that change when the easily manipulated technology bunglers die off? Trump supporters and Fox news appeal to a rapidly aging segment of the population. What happens when they are gone?
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@Andy Exactly. Expecting a brand new app written to perform a once-every-four-year function to execute flawlessly in the hands of untrained users on sketchy networks was a really, really bad idea. Weaponizing social media apps geared towards poorly educated users is cheap and easy by comparison. Terribly immoral, but technically trivial.
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@Andy The "establishment" Democrats are way behind, ie turning down embedded help from Facebook and Twitter social media was a really bad move on the part of the DNC/Clinton insiders during the 2016 primaries. (I guess you don't want any outsiders inside the DNC, watching... even if you really, really could use expert help that is being freely given to your Republican opponents. )
Meanwhile, the Bernie Sanders campaign is tremendously Internet savvy! They have raised more online donations, and have the largest base in the history of the party! They also created their own caucus-reporting ap that DID NOT FAIL to track the results coming out of Iowa!
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Maryland went down the electronic, touch screen voting path, and turned around. Another NYT op ed was arguing, correctly, for low tech voting. Scanning paper ballots still works really well, and the paper ballots are there for verification.
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Anyone who has done software knows when time it tight for delivery, testing gets "condensed". Looks to be as true as ever.
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Maybe it will all be forgotten by the time NH votes. Still, this is going to be really tough for the Democrats. Can they credibly say trust us to run the government? Can they advocate for open government and transparency without being hypocrites? Above all, give us all your health care information? Can they credibly make the case that Trump and the Russians stole the last election? Among Democrats the only winners are Bloomberg and Yang.
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@Jim Linnane
Quite a lot of improperly loaded questions you pose. I am a Democrat and, while it is frustrating, it is simply a lesson learned. However, for all those with axes to grind and the hope of smears, it appears to be a field day. Et tu?
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@Jim Linnane
It will NOT be forgotten. It will be a Shadow over the entire nominating process.
"No!" is the answer to all of your other questions. If Democrats can't be trusted to count their own votes, would would trust them for anything else?
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@Phil I would would and will will. You can count count on it.
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I see no tech "disaster." A whole day delay for results--the horror!
The only people who care are the media folks left with time to fill waiting. And I see no reason we all worship at the altar of Iowa caucuses. But I do see the need for paper ballots everywhere in November 2020.
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@Blair:
There are 50 state caucuses. Iowa, as it's 92 percent white, should be near last on the list as it does almost the least in terms of representation.
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@Peg Manning
Thanks.
Trump still trumps the daily media, and Democrats ramble.
Iowa is a wake up call for Democrats to start reaching out.
Perhaps Democrats could have idea contests, to wake up.
For example, I suggest the use of songs, like "Democracy"
"Democracy is coming to the USA" (Leonard Cohen)
Instead of endlessly rambling on, I hope Democrats rally.
"Democracy is coming to the USA:
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@Peg Manning ….good comment--- " no tech 'disaster'.... a whole day delay---the horror!"
We need some perspective.
This is a perfect example of how 24/7 Cable TV has to fill up unlimited hours of time, so while they do report important news, they also inflate, amplify and even exaggerate everything, to a great extent. Yet they hardly ever discuss the real pros/cons of issues for 2020 that affect our lives!
Many of Cable TV's overly egotistical pundits earn their living by long, drawn out attention-getting sentences trying to hook viewers on and on. Then before the commercials they say "Stay With US". Like we have to be ordered to stay? It's plenty of noise signifying less than appears.
And this op ed by Swisher is an overly wordy, rather tedious amplification to plow through.
Seems the web exaggerates our politics, then the news media follows, columnists grab on, then the tech news writers like Swisher double down.
One sensible NYT article today is --"The Only Safe Election Is a Low-Tech Election..... a 21st-century election requires 19th-century technology."
And could we benefit from some news media like it was in 20th century before 24/7 Cable TV?
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Ridiculous. The GOP will soon be blaming the candidates for the failure of the technology. A Trump with a perfect tech team provided by the KGB proves that technology is not always the friend of democracy. Let this be a warning about the November election where a fair count is the one way to save our country from Trump and the GOP's total moral failure.
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Not clear how you equate this magnificent Democrat failure with a vast Republican conspiracy. Sometimes the crow tastes a little better served cold. Go ahead. Take a bite.
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No plan is a plan without contingent plans for when it fails to work. Pretty simple.
We live in a world of high tech as no previous generation and few of us actually understand the technology. We hear about A.I. and robots replacing humans. We place faith, blind faith, in this technology and think about all the ways that technology may make us all obsolete. We give it the characteristics of ancient gods, immortal things that can control what we cannot.
Like it our not, technology is still a tool which has the same relationship to us as did the first stone axe. It extends our own capacities.
The only thing that went wrong for the democrats what failing to have an alternative plan when the application failed. Hope for the best but plan for the worst.
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I'm not implying anything nefarious but it would be interesting to follow the money here. Who proposed, vetted, and chose these companies, and why?
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@stan continople The responsible parties emerged in 2017 from--wait for it--Hillary's 2016 tech team. The crowd who couldn't count Electoral College votes are at it again, and we continue to live with the hubris of the 2016 Brooklyn Bubble.
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Technology seems to make many people think they are a whole lot smarter than they are. And so they get played.
Hanging chads, hacked DNC emails, the Obamacare website, Jeff Bezos' phone, and now this.
When will people realize that they are just flattering themselves that they understand these technologies? Software experts warn us: use paper ballots. Why won't anyone listen? The enthusiasm for these technologies is just naive.
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With respect, this sounds like a meta-take on tech in elections. The real question--why have it at all?--isn't fairly answered by "Because it works." In fact, in terms of basic ballot-casting mechanics, it's about as necessary as a 50-button TV remote. Keep it behind the scenes for gathering polling data, let campaigns harness and use the potential for their own strategies, but when it comes to the actual moment of voter choice, enough! Pen, paper, count, done.
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Like there’s a reason they use such old computers to control the nukes. It works. It’s not on the internet and no one has an equivalent system the could ever control it. If it ain’t broke . . .
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Sadly, an indication of how able the political classes are to properly use and regulate the Computer/Internet World.
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I think we should question the whole premise here. What are the positives of relying on apps and technology for voting? Speed. What are the negatives? Fraud, fraud and fraud. Why put counting votes into the “hands” of programs that the average person doesn’t understand? Isn’t It just asking for the best hacker to win? Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.
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I had read that Trump's campaign was "embedded" in Facebook so they got direct advice from them on how to most efficiently exploit their system. Clinton's campaign passed on that.
I also read that when young people proposed effective Facebook ads that need to be punchy, grab attention, and encourage forwarding, they are turned down by DNC establishment who want more complex messages. I guess more like the rambling 4 page letters I get from the DNC all the time.
Maybe most important, Zuckerberg and Trump mutually benefit from each other, while some Democratic candidates are explicitly calling to break up Facebook, which Zuckerberg called an existential threat.
So let's stop worrying about Putin exploiting Facebook, it's going to be Facebook itself this time. And the establishment dinosaurs who still think shaking hands and sending snail mail is the way to win.
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@Jerry S Jerry, do you need me to fix you a drink? Facebook offered to help Clinton in their social media campaign. Her team was so obnoxious and narcissistic, they said they didn’t need the assist. The republican candidate received the same offer (if he hadn’t, they would have been accused of bias). He wasn’t stupid or obtuse enough to turn it down.
It’s not a conspiracy. It’s the democrats typical method of figuring out a way to lose, against all odds.
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@Jerry S I get your point. It is just too bad people aren't willing to take the time required for rational analysis.
Oh, gotta go...Dancing With The Stars is on...
What do you expect? Taking down Trump is a full time job so Democrats don’t have time for less important things like passing legislation and holding elections.
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@God And Trump wouldn't be taken down even if he lost the election, because he would deny that the voting tally was accurate, or he would actively (or passively through some foreign government) change the tally.
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In fact, the Democrat-led House of Representatives have passed a pile of legislation that gets absolutely zero consideration in Mitch McConnell's Senate (which I'd say has only been good at installing judges and running a sham impeachment trial). Pay attention please!
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Actually the House has passed a bunch of bills. It's Mitch that doesn't want any legislation that would show that the Democrats have good ideas for the country. Of course, eliminating everything that the Obama administration did is ok for the Republicans.
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Paper is the only thing I trust with the vote.I have never heard of an app trail.
Time to go old school.
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We hope there is time to rigorously test the hardware and software that will count the 130 million ballots in November, and collect the results from across America’s thousands of precincts.
And then, there is the real risk that transporting and preserving the physical paper ballots is not secure.
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@Gulcadipgidiator -- BINGO.
With hackers out-hacking hackers,
paper IS.
The rest, as you say, is ephemeral.
GO, Paper!
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With all of the hand-wringing, I am glad that the Iowa Caucus reporting was a dismal failure - as long as it becomes clear that this was a local problem.
The practical effects for this and future elections are positive:
• Iowa is less of "gatekeeper" in this election, as every hour of delay and confusion reduces the positive bounce for the eventual winner, and keeps other candidates going.
• Iowa will inevitably lose its place as the first and most important test for presidential elections.
We desperately need the early winnowing states to better reflect the diversity of America in our presidential election process, and this will hasten - if not guarantee - that result.
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How does every ATM machine in the world since the mid 1980's know my checking account balance down to the penny, and we can't tabulate votes properly and securely? If billions of dollars changes hands virtually, via computers and machines, every hour of every day, why can't we get voting right?
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@Ed except they don’t. Billions have been stolen. That’s not something they advertise.
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@Ed "since the mid 1980's" gives the banks a lot of time for QA and test procedures - and there is money at risk.
Its not "we cant get voting right" - its the team that decided to not train and therefore did not get feedback that their app was not working. So your answer - they didnt do qa well. Simple.... happens all the time.
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@Ed
Because the Republicans don't want it to work right. Starve the beast indeed, by bleeding it dry (take funding away from everything it does, in general) and then killing it (don't fund competent, secure voting software, which indeed isn't technologically difficult to create, today. Any FAANG company could do it as a donation and it would be a speck in their budgets to provide the personnel.)
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Ah yes, another article reminding us Fox News lives rent free in the minds of triggered liberals. The number one thing Democrats can't stand is that the traditional media-DNC collaboration to pick a President is undermined by social media. I mean, it's been tradition for news organizations to give the DNC debate questions and coordinate on articles. of course we know that due to Russian hacking, not because the media dared expose the truth to American voters. How dare the people pick their own candidates!
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