WHAT HAPPENED AT THE IOWA CAUCUS?

The Iowa Caucus on Monday was everything, except normal – it was chaotic, confusing and a lot longer than expected.

Everything since the beginning of the Democratic 2020 presidential campaigns and the debates have led to the results in Iowa; the problem is that those results were nowhere to be found for quite a while.

The apparent cause of this disaster was that Iowa Democratic Party (IDP) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) made a slight change in the process of voting: They steered caucus precinct results to a centralized count by use of a new smartphone app, for the sake of accuracy. This app is the central story, because in the middle of Monday evening, the app crashed and then the backup for the app crashed, meaning the statewide results would be compromised. 

Everything proceeding the results being lost was also complete chaos, regarding the app, to say the least. It turned out that the app in question wasn’t developed with encryption or security, meaning the results could be hacked. The results that the IDP did release over the next three days showed a tight race between Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders; curiously, these results would be updated randomly and would show “Mayor Pete” ahead, by a narrow margin.

To make things even more funny, the app that started this whole controversy was developed by a company called “Shadow” that had $41,000 donated by none other than Buttigieg’s own campaign. This information came out right after the process for voting was in question. Buttigieg would declare victory and give a speech, and this was days before we’d even get the “final” results.

It’s rich that the party that has spent the last four years fighting against corruption and illegitimate elections would screw up the first big night of the upcoming one. No matter which candidate you support, it’s very apparent that there are conflicts of interests within the Democratic party and the DNC. The app controversy just seems to prove that. 

As of Advocate press time on Thursday, more updated results have come in: Buttigieg and Sanders are still neck-and-neck for the state delegates (committed to the Democratic Party convention to support a nominee) but, as far as the popular vote, Sanders leads Buttigieg by 6,000 votes, which is significant in the not-so-large state.

However, The Associated Press has declared neither candidate the victor; in fact, most of the mainstream news outlets and pundits have declared the Iowa Caucus null and void, at this point.

A few things I can pull from this whole “event” are that Sanders is the favorite among voters; Buttigieg has conflicts of interests within the DNC that he needs to address in a debate or town hall, soon; and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaigns are in big trouble, since they didn’t perform up to anyone’s expectations.  

The feeling I get after following the Caucus is that the institutions that run these primaries don’t know what they’re doing, despite having four years to prepare. It’s disappointing, because it’s a parody at this point. It sets a bad precedent for the voters who support “outsider” candidates such as Sanders, Warren and entrepreneur Andrew Yang.

It feels discouraging to vote, once again, because out-of-touch institutions are still playing big role in the way citizens conduct American democracy.