The Iowa Democratic Party chair held a conference call with the campaigns a while ago to provide an update on the unfolding catastrophuck:
Iowa party officials are holding a call with the campaigns.
Troy Price tells them he'll put out about *50%* of results at 4 p.m. today.
There are objections.
He won't say when the rest are coming.
— Shane Goldmacher (@ShaneGoldmacher) February 4, 2020
According to CNN (whose reporter dialed in to the conference call), Price said they’ll release “more than 50% of the results” by 5 PM ET because “we want to get some results out there.”
Oh honey, no.
Price said they’d planned to release information as tallies were confirmed throughout the evening yesterday, which is a fine on caucus night, I guess. It ain’t caucus night anymore. Am I alone in thinking this will make an already embarrassing and fraught situation that much worse?
BGinCHI
I bet the Academy Awards folks are glad someone else is taking the heat off them.
But seriously, Iowa, it’s time to admit you have a problem. Seek the help you need.
Probably Not an Asshole mistermix
There are a lot of incompetents in the world, and they slide by without anyone noticing, until they’re under pressure. Perhaps you think that’s harsh. Read this and decide:
This is called “sideloading” an app. It is what developers do to test the app. In other words, the app that was supposed to be used to report results couldn’t be downloaded from the app store. You had to jump through hoops to load it. I saw some reports saying older caucus workers refused to run the app. *Any* caucus worker should have refused. This is not a case of technical incompetence by the olds.
janesays
They’re trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube. They should just wait until they have the full results and release them then, even if it means we don’t know who won until tomorrow or Thursday.
Danton
I wouldn’t mind if the IDP held off announcing the results until 15 minutes before the SOTU, because Trump might be a bit distracted and, of course, so would the media.
Cacti
If it serves to further discredit the caucus process and Iowa’s status as first in the nation, I’m fully in favor.
namekarB
I don’t think anything they do at this point can make the situation worse. That ship full of worst has already sailed. Also, what @Danton: said
Hildebrand
Take the time to get the final results tallied correctly. Patience is your friend.
cokane
It’s not a catastrophe. And honestly using this language isn’t helpful.
It’s a delay in reporting the results. That’s it.
Betty Cracker
@Probably Not an Asshole mistermix: Wow.
Heywood J.
deleted
pamelabrown53
Agree with Betty. By releasing partial results today it will just add to the chaos and further feed conspiracy theories.
Cacti
In the least surprising news of the day:
Nevada Democratic Party announces it will NOT be using the new and improved app from the Iowa Caucuses.
Bluegrl21
This is painful to watch.
They need to wait.
MattF
Insofar as this clusterfuck makes the Iowa caucuses into a bad joke, I’m actually somewhat relieved. Time to move on.
Roger Moore
Not at all. Crazed fans of any candidate who does worse after the initial tally will immediately claim it’s part of a conspiracy to steal votes/delegates from their candidate and give them to whoever comes out ahead. At the very least, if they release the data piecemeal, they need to identify which results are coming from where, since that will make the shifts in numbers seem more plausible. It would still be better to wait until the count is complete before releasing anything.
Mnemosyne
@pamelabrown53:
Thirded. Partial results will only make things worse.
HumboldtBlue
What if they unplug the modem and count to 15 and then plug it in and turn it back on again, will that help?
For a distraction, here’s a short piece from a biologist who spent a few months in Chernobyl while researching the effect of radiation on fungi (and the animals with brightly glowing yellow eyes).
Cacti
Just to remind everyone.
The new and improved Iowa Causes were introduced following complaints from the Wilmer campaign that the 2016 caucuses were unfair, because of reasons.
Thanks again, Bernie!
different-church-lady
How the ‘eff did they do this before they went app? And can we just go back to that?
Mnemosyne
Also, I’m guessing that the heaviest pressure is actually coming from the media, not the DNC. They want their story NOWNOWNOW, goddamnit! They’re like frickin’ junkies desperate for their next dose.
Searcher
@Cacti: Ironically, this is exactly why Iowa goes first.
No, literally: they have always had one of the most convoluted caucus systems, and wanted the extra time to make sure they would have time to figure out who won and which delegates to send to the National Convention.
Of course, that purpose (“We might need a couple of months to figure out what the result was”) is at cross-purposes with their role as “early indicator of the eventual primary winner”.
cokane
Also, important to add, people here who hate that Iowa goes first or hate caucuses are getting what they want because of this delay. Any momentum the winner would have gotten with a normal result schedule is going to be somewhat clipped now.
ByRookorbyCrook
@cokane: It is a communications catastrophe and royal pooch screwing showcasing all the flaws and fail points of the caucus system. It is not the way anyone wants to launch the reveal of the opposition candidate to Trump. Let us not downplay how this fugaree plays into the ‘narrative’ of this week. Weak and incompetent Dems vs resurgent Chump. Saying that the ‘narrative’ should not be this misses the point. It is our current reality to have a weak and incompetent national media and an inattentive and accepting populace.
Heywood J.
Starting to see the bright side of this. If this doesn’t ensure that Iowa is no longer first, and no longer has caucuses, nothing will. Should have happened after 2016.
cokane
@ByRookorbyCrook: It’s not a catastrophe. The results will be published exactly one day later than expected. And still well ahead of the New Hampshire vote.
There is literally no material, lasting effect of what is going on in Iowa right now. And it’s something I suspect even those complaining about right now won’t remember in two months.
kindness
I would support the DNC stating they won’t fund anything but voted elections any longer. No $$ for caucuses.
Betty Cracker
@cokane: I agree with this…
…which is why it’s puzzling that you initially claimed this situation is not that big of a deal. Given the sucktastic, media narrative-driven political hellscape we inhabit, this delay could materially affect the outcome, if not in Iowa, down the road.
Mary G
Putin must be laughing his ass off.
trollhattan
Nevada wants everybody to know, “We’ve got this.”
They have until the 22nd? Easy-peasy, right?
Cacti
According to you.
Roger Moore
@namekarB:
This is a sign you lack imagination. One obvious thing they could do to make the situation worse is to be in such a hurry they release flawed results they later have to go back and correct.
Probably Not an Asshole mistermix
@Cacti:
L – O – Fucking – L
Martin
May I posit an alternate theory?
Consider that the DNC is not exactly putting their all into this because they despise the Iowa caucus and want it to fail? The are allocating the same resources to Iowa that they are to the other states, and states with non-shitty voting processes are able to do very well with those resources and Iowa is not.
Oh, and fair warning, the CA primary is on super tuesday and the voter protection systems we put in place a few years ago makes our process VERY slow. As in, it usually takes a month to certify the election because we’re more interested in getting it right than meeting Chuck Todds ‘I have nothing interesting to say on live TV, someone give me a number to pontificate on’ deadline.
Nina
Stepping on the state of the union speech makes it forgiveable to me. Anything that takes the attention off Cheetolini is great.
cokane
@Betty Cracker: Things are only “media-driven” to the extent that the public allows them to be. You can either use your larger than average platform to contribute to that, which is what you’re doing by making a mountain out of this. Or you can chose to maintain a cooler head.
cmorenc
@cokane:
The problem isn’t just “delay” in results – such an unforced clusterf*ck casts a strong image of the democrats as incompetent – even though it was the Iowa state D-party leadership who blundered, it nonetheless reflects negatively on the D party nationally and sets up several news cycles of negative publicity about the blundering confusing mess instead of anything substantive about the candidates.
HumboldtBlue
When it’s Democrats and an election or caucus it’s always a good time for Will Rogers circa 1932.
The quote then continues for what to do when the votes are all counted.
Martin
@Betty Cracker: Nah, it just means that Iowa won’t kick out ⅓ of the candidates based on a 15% turnout in a tiny state. They’ll all stay in at least through NH.
Put another way, Iowa loses their chance to damage the process.
Kraux Pas
I agree this will make it worse. However, i think it would make it still worse if they were to make this announcement then not follow through.
Miss Bianca
Now I am even more pissed that Colorado didn’t do away with the caucus system altogether. Now we have a Presidential *primary* and caucuses for Senate and state-level offices. Sound stupid and confusing to you? I’m a local party official and *I* still don’t understand it!
Damn, why didn’t we just get rid of fucking caucuses when we had the chance?? Maybe this Iowa clusterfuck will lead our party officials here to reconsider that option.
germy
cokane
Calling this a “catastrophuck” is fun, I get it. But this is likely to turn out to be a sub-24 hour delay in reporting results.
The next primary is the 11th. I fail to see how one more day to count the results is a disaster worth remarking upon? Have people really become this short of attention spans?
WaterGirl
You are not alone in thinking that, Betty. Oh my god, these people are going to compound the existing clusterfuck.
If they release about 50% of the results, can we go back to election night 2016 and just stop the clock at the point that Hillary was clearly winning? If so, I’m in. Otherwise, hell no.
Geez. Releasing partial results will be a total disaster.
Please please please there must be someone they will listen to that can talk them out of this.
Roger Moore
@Martin:
To add to the enjoyment, this will be LA County’s first election using voting centers and their brand new voting machines*. We had a mock election last year to try to shake some bugs out, but this will be the first time they’re being used for real.
*Technically speaking they’re electronic ballot marking machines, but you get the general point.
Marcopolo
@Mnemosyne:This about a thousand percent.
Seems to me one lesson to take away from all of this is that the IDP needs to concentrate on creating an election/caucus that works first and foremost for the people voting, secondly for the candidates/campaigns, and last for the media. The way in which the Iowa caucuses have transformed into a primary media/money hole monstrosity over the last couple of decades should make everyone involved take a step back and actually consider who is being best/most served by the entire process. If it isn’t the voters & candidates/campaigns then changes should be made (I’d say the same thing is true of the entire primary debate process).
A this point it doesn’t matter much whether the numbers come out early tonight, late tonight, or tomorrow morning. What does matter is that the numbers come out in a way that ensures their accuracy and completeness and, hopefully, transparency. Releasing an incomplete result doesn’t serve any purpose other than to allow the media & campaigns to do spinning that will further delegitimize the process for a lot of folks.
Martin
@cmorenc: I think it reflects on Iowa more than Democrats. I don’t think there are a lot of people watching old white folks in Iowa on TV play musical chairs in a gym thinking, ‘man, there’s no way this process could get fucked up’.
And the explanations that this Yang guy teamed up with that Biden guy to ensure that Yang got a delegate and Biden got a delegate, but the Yang guy also teamed up with the Amy guy and got another delegate along with Amy’s delegate.
I mean, how the fuck does that even work? I consider myself pretty well researched on things and the idea that I sent 3 people over there and 2 people over there and walked away with more delegates than Warren makes no fucking sense.
Burn. It. To. The. Ground. And. Piss. On. The. Ashes.
jonas
The DNC needs to switch to an all-primary nominating system. Get a piece of paper. Mark you preferred candidate. Count ballots. Report results.
See? This isn’t that hard.
ByRookorbyCrook
Yes, the massive pull of this top 10,000 blog to alter the narrative of a week where the public is very drawn to the news cycle… As I said this is a communications catastrophe, you can downplay the effect ‘down the road’, but every other contest from now to the convention will be colored by this. Will Nevada be a discussion of the influence of the Unions or the Hispanic vote, or will the constant talk be about how will the DNC fix their broken caucus system. Will delayed results from close contests be viewed as waiting to get the count correct or will their be ‘questions’ raised by the losers on process? The DNC owns this now, fair or not. And it will ripple well beyond the first week of February 2020.
cokane
@germy: thanks for this. Some historical perspective is warranted. I swear, the social-media dominated internet has seemed to have shrunk the attention spans and memories of even older people.
Not every election has to report their results immediately! And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Kent
Honestly, the fact that the are going to turn it into an even BIGGER clusterfuck is probably a good thing because it gives all the non-Bernie candidates more license to just wash their hands of Iowa completely and start fresh in New Hampshire or South Carolina.
Rumors are that Bernie and Buttigieg were the winners. The bigger of a cluster they make the whole thing, the more it takes the momentum out of their “wins” and the more we can just ignore Iowa and move on.
Martin
@Roger Moore: Please learn from Orange County. Our registrar is a Republican, but he’s outstanding. Lots of polling places, machines always work, staff are well trained, frequent election results along with feedback on where in the process we are.
We’ve been doing vote centers for a while without issue. They even have mobile ones – a truck will go to events with machines and you can vote there.
pamelabrown53
@WaterGirl:
Somehow, when reading your comment, it sparked a mini-moment fantasy: instead they through out the results and order a primary for Super Tuesday or dead last!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Meanwhile…
Nichols leaves out the clear threat to any one else who’s been thinking about blowing whistles, at State, at Justice, in the IC….
Spanky
Depends on your definition of “worse”. Anything that kills caucuses is fine by me. And they seem intent on killing Iowa’s with fire. Please proceed!
rp
Bad:
Good:
G1 outweighs the other factors by an order of magnitude IMO. The other stuff will largely be forgotten in a week.
Mnemosyne
@cokane:
I do think that this is primarily a media-created problem. The Iowa Dems wanted to be able to provide numbers to the media more quickly than in previous years, and that led to the clusterfuck.
They really need to tell CNN and the rest to go get stuffed and that the numbers will be ready when they’re ready.
dr. bloor
@cokane: It’s not a catastrophe, but it’s not nothing. It’s an icing-on-the-goatfuck-cake involving an undemocratic selection process, featuring poor planning and sloppy security ahead of time, and repeated rakes-to-the-face afterwards.
Democrats were already sick of having a lily white state kicking off the primary season using a bizarre selection process. The delay is the delay, but context matters.
cokane
@dr. bloor: It’s a one day delay in reporting the results.
Heywood J.
To be fair to Iowa, they’re still better than Georgia, where the Secretary of State disenfranchised voters by purging, closing precincts, and unplugging machines, in order to ensure that black voters couldn’t prevent him from becoming governor. And nothing at all was done about any of it.
mapaghimagsik
@Probably Not an Asshole mistermix: en.this not an app ready for prime time. And even if in the app store, can we not be so cheap as to force people to use their own devices?
LeftCoastYankee
The Iowa problem is they made a promise (results last night) they couldn’t keep. It should have no bearing whatsoever on other caucuses.
Now Iowa and upcoming caucuses will have to go to doing it the old way. No one will care by next week.
The technology problem is this is something that should never have been done (and wasn’t done well for the reasons Mistermix said). Building an App for one use is stupid as hell. It would be obsolete in 4 years.
Secure conference call line?
TaMara (HFG)
Hey, Iowa (and all caucus states) do what Colorado did – vote those idiotic and archaic election procedures out and become a primary state. Come on over, the water is fine.
My one and only caucus was enough to convince me of their idiocy and very, very grateful for mail-in ballots statewide.
pamelabrown53
@cokane:
It’s not about having to report results immediately. There are far too many stories from all candidates’ camps about irregularities. Releasing partial results will only fuel these stories and undermine legitimacy.
cokane
Keep in mind, the GOP loves it if everyone and anyone can spread the idea that a one day delay in reporting the primary results from a small state is made into something larger
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Meanwhile…
“disagreements” named Eddie Gallagher
I know it’s pointless cloud-yelling, but imagine if a top military commander, of the mythic SEALS, no less!, resigned over disagreements with Obama. Even Bush would’ve faced a shitstorm.
pamelabrown53
@pamelabrown53: oops…throw out not through…can’t believe I missed that.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@TaMara (HFG): my recollection from the last time we went though this is: state parties pay for caucuses, state govs pay for primaries.
Is there any reason a state party can’t do a ranked-choice mail-in caucus ballot? just call a primary with mail-in ballots of a mail-in caucus?
dr. bloor
@cokane: ZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz….
Martin
@jonas: I actually think this is a great opportunity for the DNC to implement ranked choice voting. They can keep the 15% viability threshold if they want, and explain that 1st choice votes that don’t reach viability will go to 2nd choice, and so on.
So I think they can reveal a lot of voter intention under that approach if they want, without the fucked up caucus process. And it gives candidates incentives to still engage since being a 2nd choice candidate is still valuable.
Baud
You know who could run a good primary. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.
@cokane:
I agree with you. FIDO.
Baud
@Martin:
The states would have to implement it. That’s the bottleneck.
scav
There will be no hinges left in the entire country long before we get to the actual election.
NotMax
Damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
Martin
@pamelabrown53: Well, once you release partial results, the question will be asked ‘which partials? The ones that went for Biden or the ones that went for Bernie?’.
Unless you have a more open process, you’re just inviting conspiracy theories.
On election night, it’s clear they’re being released as they’re being received. They no longer have that kind of cover.
Roger Moore
@Martin:
A big thing that’s happening is that LA County designed and built its own voting machines to facilitate having voting centers that let anyone vote anywhere without causing problems. They look like they’re a good design* and well thought out, but any time you switch the entire voting process- new voting locations, new machines, new electronic poll books, etc.- there’s a potential for a lot of fuck ups. My friend who works as a poll worker is certainly worried that the new process will be a problem.
*With one exception: they apparently use thermal printing for the ballots, which is problematic because it means the ballots aren’t as physically stable as they ought to be. I assume they chose thermal printing for cost and reliability, but making ballots that can be made illegible if they’re stored at too high a temperature is a terrible idea.
JaySinWA
@trollhattan:
Yep the Nevada caucus has its own new and improved app and process. What could possibly go wrong?
At least it is unlikely to go wrong in quite the same way as Iowa.
Martin
@Baud: Given the amount of energy the state has put into maintaining this spectacle, I doubt that’s a real impediment. You make your conditions known, and if the state turns you down then you bail on the caucus, demand a regular primary, and they can cycle back to April like the rest of the states that don’t matter.
HumboldtBlue
@Martin:
Humboldt County Democrats (with a sharp split between traditional Dems and a lot of Bernie supporters) have been calling for ranked-choice voting for years.
I still think a state leader needs to lead the charge for an all mail-in ballot and ranked-choice voting. Mail-ins are excellent for driving participation and it’s far easier than going to a polling place and ranked-choice allows for more diverse candidates.
randy khan
@Martin:
So, in 2016, California’s slow but careful process first led to Sanders supporters saying that the results weren’t final and that the absentee ballots would put Sanders over the top, and then saying that the California Democrats (who, as you know, don’t count the votes) used the absentee ballot process to rig the election. The moral of the story is that you can’t win if people have convinced themselves the process is rigged against them. (But I still strongly approve of California being careful to get it right.)
pamelabrown53
@Martin:
Exactly.
Probably Not an Asshole mistermix
@mapaghimagsik:
You’re right – they should supply the devices if they’re going to count votes electronically. Now, let’s think about it for a minute. 1,681 precincts. So, to have some spares and so forth, that’s 1,800 cell phones. It has to be cell phones because most polling places don’t have public wi-fi. Those phones need to be provisioned and delivered to the right people. That’s another massive effort – so we’re probably looking at $500/device easy once you build in all the costs to get it in the hands of the right person. That’s $900K. Add in the costs of developing a decent app and you’re well over a million bucks. And that’s a one-time expense, because you can’t re-use cheap ass phones 4 years later, they’re obsolete. This is the point where people who actually know about IT say, “Are you sure that having results called in to a phone bank isn’t the best solution?”
MattF
Jen Rubin lends some perspective about the Iowa mess. I agree that Bloomberg comes out looking smart for avoiding the whole thing.
chopper
@cokane:
tell that to the political junkie media who need the results nownownow! so they can be the first to break the news nownownow!
i dunno, as someone living in a mail-in state where we don’t know the actual results of an election for a few days, this whole response has me scratching my head in bemusement.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@MattF: but only somebody with his barely believable financial advantage could pull it off.
J R in WV
@ByRookorbyCrook:
A good comment, and I agree with most of what you say, but when you said:
I think you are off target when you call the national media weak and incompetent. If they were actually weak, their incompetence would be less consequential.
Because they are one of the strongest components of our election process (which is a tragic flaw, but it is what it is!) the fact that they are so incompetent is far worse than it would be if they were actually weak.
Most of the famed talking heads and pundits are nearly completely ignorant of history here in the US, much less in Europe and Asia and all the other American nations. They don’t understand actual statistics at all…
Stats was one of my hardest classes, along with the 14 hours of calculus. I can at least talk intelligently about error probabililty and standard deviation, and know how sample sizes are related to error. And I am far, far from being a statistician. Most Pundits can’t do simple math, let alone use a multfunction calculator for statistical math.
If you don’t understand math or science and have little knowledge of history, what exactly qualifies you to interpret news events for the rest of us? Being good looking and well spoken appears to be the actual job requirements…
I better stop now, I’m getting bitter.
Oh, yeah, the topic: The Iowa Democratic Committee should keep their fucking mouths shut until they have all the data ready and can intelligently discuss the data, the process, what went wrong, why it’s taking days to do simple math, etc, etc. And the peak of their statement should be the immediate resignation of everyone who touched this process and changed it for the worse!
But we probably can’t get an intelligent discussion, these people are not competent to discuss the situation let alone manage it properly.
Martin
@Roger Moore: Thermal printing is extremely reliable and that’s what we use here. So I think it’s a good choice. The ballots shouldn’t be needed after about a month, so it should be fine. That’s part of why the state takes so long to certify the vote – they’re getting the validation of the paper ballots done in that period, rather than announcing a result and then maybe going back and fixing it if someone raises an issue. There shouldn’t ever be a recount under this process – everything gets counted up front.
It does beg the question why, if the nation insists on having 200 different ways of voting, that CA can’t have one – with one machine, one process, etc.
Roger Moore
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yes. The idea behind a caucus is that it’s a place for people to get together and discuss political issues. This is the same sense in which it’s used to describe the various interest groups (e.g. Black Caucus, Progressive Caucus, etc.) within a legislature. The goal isn’t just to ask people their opinions but to give them a chance to get together and try to convince each other to support particular candidates.
It’s also supposed to serve an organizational function. You aren’t just picking candidates, you’re also picking people to represent your area at the state party convention, which is where a bunch of other interesting party business will take place. The goal is to help build a functioning grass roots by getting people more involved in running their local party.
Baud
@Martin:
I thought you were talking about ranked choice voting in every state.
Mnemosyne
@Baud:
Why do you think she had to be gotten rid of? ?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Roger Moore: I know that’s the romantic ideal, based on statewide election outcomes of the last decade, I don’t know if it’s a tradition worth clinging to
Roger Moore
@randy khan:
Yep. A lot of the process complaints you hear are really outcome complaints. The really crazy fans are convinced their guy is so awesome that only cheating could possibly keep him from winning. Consequently, any time he doesn’t win, it must be a result of somebody working to steal the election, not other people having an honest disagreement.
Martin
@Baud: Well, I think you need to start somewhere, and given that the caucus serves that purpose now – having supporters of non-viable candidates go to their 2nd choice – means that Iowa is kind of a perfect place to start.
But yes, I would like to see it everywhere and having it everywhere, I would then like to see all of the primaries on one day in summer.
Kent
@Martin: Countries around the world have been voting since the days of ancient Greece when they used shards of pottery like casino chips to cast their ballots.
The notion that we don’t have enough information available to discern the most cost-effective, fraud-proof, auditable, accessible, and easy to use systems is utter nonsense.
And the notion that we need to rely on private tech companies to come up with proprietary solutions is beyond ridiculous.
rikyrah
@Martin:
I remember watching one of the counting centers for Mail Ballots for an area of California in 2018. I was in awe. The sheer VOLUME of what they have to count.
NotMax
@Roger Moore
Nothing – nothing – is foolproof. Stories of postal workers found to have stashed bags and bags of mail in their house or garage come to mind.
Thanks, but I prefer to be witness to turning my ballot over directly to election workers and their on site receptacles (box or scanner) and not have any third parties involved in delivering it to them.
Just One More Canuck
@Probably Not an Asshole mistermix: I worked as a poll worker in the Canadian election in October – all paper ballots. I was home in bed two hours after the polls closed
Kent
It’s worse than that really. The real problem is that we have people at the top in these campaigns, who do, in fact, know better, but they are happy to sow discord and conspiracy theories amongst their followers for cynical reasons. The fact that it is the Bernie-bots screaming about conspiracies and not say the Klobuchar followers is not simply coincidence.
AliceBlue
@germy:  I was beginning to wonder if I was the only person who remembered this.
Kent
Here in WA we have vote by mail. I still have the option of (1) dropping my ballot in an actual red elections dropbox that are stationed in front of public buildings around the region to bypass the mail (which is what I actually do), or (2) actually going in person to a precinct and casting my vote in person. The precincts are fewer and farther between but they still exist.
Furthermore, I can log onto the elections web site after I mail in my ballot to check if it was received and a vote was recorded in my name. If it turns out lost in the mail I can still go cast a backup ballot at the local precinct on election day.
Not perfect of course, but not bad.
Roger Moore
@Martin:
My impression is that LA County is trying to make the one voting machine to rule them all. We paid for the design, and we’re getting somebody to contract manufacture them for us, so we really own the whole process. I would be happier if the hardware and software were both open sourced, but we’re still in position to share the design with anyone else who wants to use it. And honestly, any system that can scale to handle elections in LA County can scale anywhere else in the country.
Kent
@AliceBlue: I thought they had declared Romney the winner and then 2 weeks later said. Sorry, never mind, Santorum was the actual winner.
Martin
@rikyrah: Yeah, my county (not remotely close to the size of LA county) had half a million mail in votes in 2016. Half a million is a lot of anything.
NotMax
@Kent
Fine and dandy that but the other side of the coin are the people who assume that mailing it (or dropping it in) is the end of the process and can’t be arsed to do any follow-up.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
how about a weekend long caucus where people can drop by and talk to their neighbors and wear tee-shirts and buttons and dealy-boppers on their heads and drop bottles of wine on the floor and when they’re ready drop ranked-choice ballots in a box by the exits and eliminate all the ‘go stand with that group’ horseshit that makes participation harder for older people, the disabled, young parents, people with two jobs, car trouble, introverts and the slightly (or more than slightly) misanthropic and agoraphobic
Miss Bianca
@TaMara (HFG): Except we haven’t. The only primary we have is for the Presidency. Everything else is determined by caucus.
Yutsano
@Kent: I always drop mine off with either the poll workers or the ballot drop box. The energy when I went to deposit mine in 2016 was actually fun. Not the final result but at least the drop off part was fun.
Schmendrick
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Funny you should ask. Here in Nevada we will be having a sort of hybrid, ranked choice early vote folded into the caucus process, From Feb 15th to 18th, voters can come to any polling location in their county and submit a ranked choice ballot with up to 5 choices. Then, at the caucus on Feb 22nd, their first choice will count towards making that candidate viable. If that candidate is not viable in the first round, there is a process to go to the second or later choices to assign the vote to a viable candidate.
I am hopeful that this hybrid process will lead to a much larger portion of the electorate participating. We shall see.
WaterGirl
@pamelabrown53: I would sign up for that reality.
Croaker
@Probably Not an Asshole mistermix: When you use custom apps at scale, you preload them on phones and distribute the phones, or if you’ve got a BYO situation, you have IT load the apps. This is FUBAR.
Gex
@Roger Moore: This. I have bookmarked a couple of folks who went big with “RIGGED!” statements last night that I plan to call out if their candidate is declared the winner.
Mike in Pasadena
No, Betty, you are not alone.
Mike in Pasadena
@Cacti: That’s a very smart and clear-eyed vision on your part. I am tired of Iowa and the emphasis/attention it receives by candidates and media alike. Well said, cacti. However, I’d still prefer the Iowa Democratic Party keep its mouth shut until it can release full and accurate results. Complete results.
unknown known
@cokane: I dunno. It even made the news in the UK. I was walking through a big train station in my city where there’s a digital board that sometimes puts up news headlines, and it was posting something along the lines of: “Iowa caucases a catastrophic mess”