No, this isn’t a conspiracy theory. But it is fodder for at least a Hollywood comedy script writer.
An app created by a tech firm run by veterans of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign is taking heat for the unprecedented delay in reporting Democratic caucus results from Iowa.
Results from Monday’s caucuses could not be transmitted to Iowa party headquarters, and state Democratic Party Chairman Troy Price blamed the problem on a coding error. “While our plan is to release results as soon as possible today, our ultimate goal is to ensure that the integrity and accuracy of the process continues to be upheld,” he said in a statement Tuesday morning.
Confusion among caucus organizers over how to use the app also seemed to contribute to the problem.
The firm behind the app reportedly is Shadow, an affiliate of ACRONYM, a Democratic nonprofit founded in 2017 “to educate, inspire, register, and mobilize voters,” according to its website. Shadow started out as Groundbase, a tech developer co-founded by Gerard Niemira and Krista Davis, who worked for the tech team on Clinton’s campaign for the 2016 Democratic nomination.
Niemira had previously worked at kiva.org, a nonprofit that makes loans to entrepreneurs and others in the developing world, and Davis had spent eight years as an engineer at Google. ACRONYM’s founder and CEO is Tara McGowan, a former journalist and digital producer with President Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign.
Lord. The firm that developed the app is called “Shadow.” Shadow was originally Groundbase, which is founded by two people who worked for the Clinton’s campaign tech team. It’s affiliated wtih ACRONYM. The founder of ACRONYM worked for Obama’s campaign in 2012.
So what Merlin? A bunch of people who worked for the Democratic establishment were behind an app that is being blamed for the Iowa Caucus debacle. I don’t think anything nefarious is going on. It just looks like one of those “I know a guy who knows a guy who can help us out.” In other words, incompetence triumphs when you have friends with important contacts.
Maybe the Iowa Democratic Party should have just looked on Angie’s list?
But it gets funnier:
Shadow did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment.
ACRONYM acquired Shadow in January 2019 to function as its tech-development arm. “When a light is shining, Shadows are a constant companion,” its website says. “We see ourselves as building a long-term, side-by-side ‘Shadow’ of tech infrastructure to the Democratic Party and the progressive community at large.”
In a statement late Monday night, ACRONYM distanced itself from Shadow, saying it was not a tech provider and did not have any information about what went wrong in Iowa.
In an interview with NPR in January, Troy Price, chairman of the Iowa state Democratic Party, declined to say whether it had been tested for vulnerabilities by any independent experts, suggesting the secrecy around it helped to keep it secure from cyberattacks. The state party subsequently told the Des Moines Register it had been independently tested.
The state Democratic parties of Iowa and Nevada each paid around $60,000 to Shadow, according to Federal Election Commission disclosures. Nevada’s Democratic caucuses are set for Feb. 22.
Don’t look at us! Not our fault! We made sure it was secure against cyberattacks! And trust us. We had it “independently tested.”
But in case you think it is just the Iowa Democratic Party that paid for Shadow’s services, you would be mistaken:
Among Shadow’s clients is Pete Buttegieg’s presidential campaign, which paid $42,500 to the firm in July 2019 for “software rights and subscriptions,” according to disclosures to the FEC. A spokesman for the campaign says the payment was for a service used to send text messages to voters. The campaigns of Joe Biden and Kirsten Gillibrand, who withdrew from the race last year, also made smaller payments to Shadow.
If I was a serious conspiracy theorist, I would go out and say that Pete Buttegieg got Shadow to place a bug in the app. Then, when no results can come out, Buttigieg can claim he is “victorious! /s.
Or this is ultimately the revenge of Hillary Clinton against Bernie Sanders! Clinton sabotaged the results with her minions app! Think of her as the equivalent of the Soup Nazi for Bernie Sanders. “NO RESULTS FOR YOU!”
But this shit really would make for a good comedy, if voting in this election were not so damn serious.