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Comment by dqv | Hacker News Reader

The whole thing is a red flag. McGowan's ties to the Buttigieg campaign[0] are a clear conflict of interest. Whether or not there was malicious intent, there was no disclosure ahead of time. Now we get the conspiracy theories.

And I can't really blame people for theorizing conspiracy. The IDP and DNC should've vetted this company in advance and declined due to the conflict of interest.

Let's not forget that they were told not to go ahead with using this app (albeit for other reasons than the ties to the Buttigieg campaign)[1].

[0]: https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2020/02/04/us/politics/ap-u... McGowan, 34, is married to Michael Halle, a senior strategist for Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign

[1]: https://www.npr.org/2020/01/14/795906732/despite-election-se...

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The DNC does not run the Iowa Democratic Caucus.

You're right I'm editing my comment to clarify the IDP and DNC

Thankfully, this story has been flagged off the front page, so there's probably no further need to litigate it.

Hey, not everyone is thwarted by the dreaded front page. I generally look about 3 to 5 pages in because some of the more interesting discussions tend to end up getting flagged in one way or another.

I have also found this to be absolutely true

They do have influence. For example, the Iowa caucus process from the messy 2016 results were hashed out with the DNC involved.

That mainly focused on increasing transparency. Thanks to the activists, we got transparency on initial and final vote count before SDE%. Activists in 2016 pushed for financial transparency but that didn't pass.

And here we are.... with a firm called Shadow that borked an otherwise very well run caucus process.

The app is an excuse/trojan horse. They could have counted and reconfirmed it all by Tuesday with a strong phone bank, paper records alone.

I don't know anyone with firsthand direct knowledge of the Iowa Caucuses who believes that, and am reading lots of people with that knowledge pushing back on that as misinformation. Obviously, I'm not going to use the name "Shadow" as evidence one way or the other in a message board argument, because that argument is silly.

Thomas are you implying that it's misinformation that the DNC in 2016 had influence to IDC's 2020 caucus process?

Not the parent, but I believe the Unity Reform Commission, which had reps appointed by Clinton, Sanders, and Perez (head of DNC) is what influenced the 2020 caucus. So while it's not inaccurate to say it was the DNC, that's not quite the whole picture.

And there’s also now been reporting that the DNC has taken over the recount:

https://mobile.twitter.com/kendallkarson/status/122481061735...

Except when they do:

https://twitter.com/Senator_Hatch/status/1225783569605369856

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