Either way, this is a pretty good indictment of this entire idea. Stick with what worked for hundreds of years, don’t try “solutions” to non-problems.
In Iowa specifically, I’d disagree - primaries are a more robust and inclusive system than caucuses.
This doesn’t really seem like something to pin on the app exclusively - it’s a change management failure on the part of the party, underlined by the fact that even their normal phone lines were overloaded due to new data reporting requirements.
I wasn’t on the ground or anything (I’m a complete outsider who read the news) but this seems like a lot to pin on some app developers when the issues were spread pretty far. It’s damnably hard to train 1800 users spread across a state with varying levels of experience.
I suspect their phone lines were overloaded because they optimistically assumed the app would handle the majority of the reporting. When Plan A failed, there was a knock-on effect on Plan B, causing it to subsequently fail.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/04/us/politics/iowa-caucus-s...
Granted, I have seen elephants drowning in a teacup in corporate IT, but not to that extent.
That doesn't matter, 1700 users posting updates to numbers isn't something that would be difficult to write and test properly.
Who knows why they felt that secrecy was so important - but this seems to be a touchstone of the governing class. Even in an election - what should be the most open event in our entire society - they're trying to be gatekeepers of information.