Shadow's Cancelled Nevada Caucus App Had Errors, Too (vice.com) 81
New submitter em1ly writes: A source familiar with the Nevada version of the error-ridden Iowa caucus app spoke to Motherboard about even more issues with the app. From the report: "After logging into the app, users were presented with a dashboard letting them submit how many caucus attendees they wished to add for each candidate, according to the app. A pop-up then asked, 'Are you sure you want to submit the first alignment? Please ensure all in-person participant counts are correct before confirming.' But submitting the counts for the first alignment did not work, according to a source. Motherboard granted the source anonymity to speak candidly about a technical issue. 'Error,' a second pop-up reads. 'Could not submit alignment.'" A Shadow spokesperson told Motherboard that "Because the deadline for the Nevada app was later, Shadow's Nevada app was still in beta testing, and that testing identified some errors that were being fixed." They also said that the app was on track for a "successful rollout" with the Nevada Democratic Party.
"There was a new release ready to test in Nevada following the Iowa caucuses. That version wasn't ready for use and has not been, and will not be released," they added.
Nevada Democrats have already said they will not use the app.
"There was a new release ready to test in Nevada following the Iowa caucuses. That version wasn't ready for use and has not been, and will not be released," they added.
Nevada Democrats have already said they will not use the app.
The Shadow's Clueless (Score:2)
Vote counting app? Huh? iPhones are supposed to be more secure than computers, but this company can't get it right. Open source competitor needed here.
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Was it a sick ostrich?
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Uh, I don't see that word in the article.
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Is paper open source?
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Open source competitor needed here.
Open source competitor not welcome here.
Democrats are no longer compatible with ordinary elections. They have specific outcomes they require and they'll convolute whatever elections they must to get those outcomes. Shaping polls, shaping elections processes with Byzantine rules and insider "Shadow Inc." outfits, trying to invalidate elections they lose and anything else they have to pull.
People just won't vote like they're supposed to and so the nazi punchers have to act.
Don't think things will get
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The opposite of open source is "closed source"... we need to be sure everybody's got the same version of a working program on Election Day.
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Well, you're not completely wrong, but you're conflating "Democrats" as a whole with the DNC itself, which more and more these days I doubt actually has an agenda that is parallel with the party's voters.
Re: The Shadow's Clueless (Score:2)
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Democrats are Nazi's now? Really?
Your so full of crap its running out your ears. Even Trump isn't Nazi bad, though he is certainly taking after more than a few Fascists in various ways.
You either couldn't understand what they wrote, or jumped on the word nazi from the outset. See, they're talking about how so many progressives and democrats(including media and pundits) embraced political violence. i.e. "Punch a nazi" as their first response after Richard Spencer. This was after several decades of labeling republicans and conservatives as nazi's. In case you need help, go look at all the pundits and DNC-aligned political leaders who started spouting that as the appropriate way forward,
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Yep, once Nazi's are brought in, I tend to fail to take it seriously at that point. That the response started with, "Democrats are no longer compatible with ordinary elections." only made it twice as bad.
Then you failed to understand even the premise of what they wrote.
Okay, this sounds like someone is trying for a moral equivalence thing that isn't existing with the usual, "But he did it too!" Yah, not remotely buying it. It is straight up bullshit 101. The first step to defending horrible behavior, to Trump and his ilk, is to accuse your opponent of it first. If you can find one valid example out of the set of the universe, you just hammer it over and over again and call the subset the whole set. Anyone using this tactic should be denounced and driven out of politics, and yes I certainly include the Democrats that have done it. I forgive none of it on any side, but Trump and his ilk are the current problem by far.
Did you understand your own quote? And if you think Trump and their ilk are worse then what democrats and their supporters have pulled in the last 3 years, how many shootings and murders, and attempted murders where they proudly declaim that they're doing it for political reasons do you need.
Republicans use whatever weapon that works. There seems no low they won't drop down to. Guess what you can be black and have bad qualities at the same time and be black and have good qualities at the same time. It is the same way you can be white and have either bad or good qualities or of course a mix. Basically the response your just trying to defend two questionable individuals by throwing the racism card without any merit what soever. Kanye basically should not be taken seriously, at least in politics. He doesn't seem to quite be all there. Here is a quote from Kanye:
You failed to understand my point. If "republicans" are the ones that seem to have no low to which they'll drop to, then why are the democrats the ones
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Yeah, the GOP only shapes voting districts, completely different /s
Re: The Shadow's Clueless (Score:1)
Follow the Money (Score:3)
This app, developed by the trustworthy folks at "Shadow Inc." was funded by Pete Buttigieg, who started his victory speech before the votes were even in. Pure coincidence I'm sure.
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I believe in coincidences. Coincidences happen everyday. However, I do not trust coincidences.
Re: Follow the Money (Score:2)
Dont forget that its run by ex HRC campaign staff. My question is were the irregularities ones casting votes for HRC despite being absent from the ballot? Or were they simply designed to remove votes from Sanders and just distribute them equally among the other candidates?
Re: Follow the Money (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait, so was it Buttigieg trying to steal the caucus to build early momentum, or is it a ploy by Hillary to disrupt the primary so much that she can sneak in during a brokered convention? I'm not sure which conspiracy theory we are supposed to be running with right now.
Re: Follow the Money (Score:5, Insightful)
Well it IS rather interesting how she popped up out of her hole a few weeks ago. Nothing these people do is ever coincidence. They time EVERYTHING because media attention span lasts all of 3 days. She even has a new netflix mockumentary series, all that shit. She armchair quarterbacks the campaign but both her runs ended in failure. Before someone goes on about popular vote, thats like claiming you won a basketball game because you had the most number of baskets, not points. One team shot a bunch of freethrows and layups while the other team monopolized on 3 point shots. Its the job to understand the rules of the game one is playing. It reflects poorly to act as if one doesnt. The point is, she has engaged in a lot of hyped revisionist history lately and that should be a sign she may try something. Whether that has anything to do with Iowa is pure speculation, but interesting none the less.
Re: Follow the Money (Score:4, Funny)
Biden was simply a distraction to be discarded as soon as the primary began, deep state Soros funding did its work well and everyone thought he was the most electable. But as the Iowa caucus approached, the wet toast appeal of Biden, combined with a total lack of ground game and no internet presence ensured his failure was complete. Pete was then propped up by the deepest state, giving the public a second hope at sanity, but alas, Pete was just there to get your hopes up, he’s toast come South Carolina. This is where America sinks into the depression where an admitted communist bent on the destruction of beloved American financial inequality is the only choice. But then Bloomberg steps in! Thank god for Bloomberg, I can’t believe America forgot about this guy! This guy doesn’t want money, he just has more than he could spend in a lifetime and keeps working 18hr days to get more. That’s how you know he’s incorruptible. His baller advertising and ducking beneath the fray leads him to primary victory!!! He then nominates Hillary Clinton as his VP in the name of unity and moving forward and actually beats trump!
Then Bloomberg promptly resigns. I can’t tell you more now, they may be tracing thi..... NO CARRIER
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the wet toast appeal of Biden, combined with a total lack of ground game and no internet presence ensured his failure was complete.
What a load of malarkey ! He has a bus and a webpage, what more could you want? Do you really want another library housed in a trailer? [google.com]
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All the above!
When you have many conspiracy theories circulating like that, it does not matter what the particulars for any one is ...
And you have to wonder ... Is it to cast doubt on the whole process of democracy, by any means and all means
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Well, Trump certainly has made believing in absurd conspiracies more of a mainstream thing.
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And that is dangerous.
It used to be that every election has some fringe conspiracies, but as a whole, the population was confident that elections were OK (despite minor things here and there).
Now, things are changning:
- At first, it is 'the system is rigged', unless he wins, then 'it was the greatest victory every'.
- The 'employment figures are made up', unless they are positive AND he is in power, then they 'show the
Re: Follow the Money (Score:1)
It's Buttigieg (Score:2)
At a certain point you're not longer connecting dots, your staring at a full color painting. And just because a few nut jobs have mad
Why is the above post rated insightful? (Score:2)
The above poster arrogantly implies that in the history of the world, no conspiracy has ever occurred. Worse, that it has never happened in the U.S. Sadly, this is not true. For example, I am sure some African American people would love to have a "polite" conversation about exposing some of their population to syphilis to study disease m
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Buttered-eggs is going nowhere after this though. He shot his shot and he's pretty much done. His support is soft. Nowadays the "Android designed by corporate committee" look doesn't sell very well. Good bye, Manchurian Pete.
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Buttered-eggs is going nowhere after this though. He shot his shot and he's pretty much done. His support is soft. Nowadays the "Android designed by corporate committee" look doesn't sell very well. Good bye, Manchurian Pete.
Why don't you tell me how you really feel? But more seriously that's exactly why he needed to claim victory. He knows that he doesn't have national recognition or a prior history of campaigning that's let him build up a support base or a war chest, so his best shot is to get an early jump and try to ride any wave such an early surge can generate. Even if he did win both Iowa and New Hampshire, I still wouldn't put his odds at more than one-in-ten. His is a tenuous gambit no matter how you look at it, but pu
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It's a fundamentally dishonest play, and while it may be standard practice in the beltway, and may win over a few rubes, it turns off those of us who are paying attention. And these days, a lot more Americans are actually paying attention. I started off with absolutely no opinion of Pete. Now I loathe the man.
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Actually, 42.5k sounds a bit cheap so this could just be a fluke. I did think companies and customers bought and sold stuff. The concept of a donation from a campaign is a bit odd.
In politics and government the ethical, honest and hard working ARE the minority.
Just my 2 cents
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Hell, Bloomberg bought the entire DNC for just shy of a million. It's a damn fire sale on politicians these days. 90% off! Everything Must Go!
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Trust. (Score:1, Insightful)
Who trusts the Democrats to be able to handle running the country or healthcare if they can't even manage a caucus.
Either gross incompetence or corruption. Either way I am not sure how anyone would trust Democrats to do anything right at this point.
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Who trusts the Democrats to be able to handle running the country or healthcare if they can't even manage a caucus.
Yeah, but they run the best circus in town
Consider these things as campaigns for the republicans. After all, they are a team.
Outsource to Elections Canada, Dems (Score:4, Insightful)
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How do you know Canada's count was accurate?
Re:Outsource to Elections Canada, Dems (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't speak to the entire country, but I was a scrutineer for the last Canadian Federal Election, and witnessed the counting of several polls (while also counting them myself), and I was happy to sign off on the final result (even though my candidate didn't win).
The system has a lot of checks and balances, of which the scrutineer is one of the most important. It's quite easy to become a scrutineer in Canada -- and too many ridings are effectively begging for more volunteers to help ensure the elections are fair.
So I know the count was accurate because I was there and verified the results personally. Thanks for asking!
Yaz
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Canada use pencil and paper.
Always works.
Always has.
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Oh no! Sharpies are evil! [motherjones.com]
Re:Outsource to Elections Canada, Dems (Score:4, Informative)
What the fuck is so complicated with counting votes, folks?
Because the counting system is dumb.
Don't worry about not knowing how the caucus system in Iowa works because it was new as of this year anyway. (Technically, this only applies to the Democratic caucuses - there were Republican caucuses too, but they have their own rules.)
OK, so it's a caucus, so people arrive at a polling place and then stand with a group of people who also support their candidate. Once everyone has arrived and is at their supported candidates area, the "first alignment" is taken - a simple count of voters per candidate. Simple enough.
At this point, any candidates who do not have at least 15% of the total number of voters at that given place are considered "non-viable" and their supporters are allowed to instead switch to another candidate who is viable. (If your candidate is viable, your vote is cast, and you can't change who you support.)
At this point you then have the "second alignment" and count number of votes cast for each candidate. Any voters who are still supporting non-viable candidates are considered to have voted for "uncommitted."
OK, still simple enough, just a simple count, right? Well, then enter the County Delegates. Each polling place has a set number of County Delegates they have to distribute between each candidate. It's this part of the process where everything went to hell for the most part. County Delegates cannot be rounded so they have to be distributed evenly. There's a whole rounding process used to distribute these.
Now we're done, right? No, of course not. You may have heard of "State Delegate Equivalents." What are State Delegate Equivalents? Well, they're what those assigned County Delegates are translated into, and they're weighted based on where the given polling place is. These can (and frequently are) fractional. It's these State Delegate Equivalents that determine who "won" in the end.
And that's why they can't just count the votes in a simple and sane fashion. Because the whole process is unnecessarily complicated and not a simple vote.
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Sure, but reporting those counts are simple and sane. They used to do it over the phone. They could have just used a damn google form. But no, someone had to "develop" an "app" to capture how many votes went to each candidate, and that apparently was too hard to do.
Except for the rather inconvenient fact that a bunch of the campaigns had their own apps for their own supporters to help them get an early look into voting, and those apparently worked.
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For whatever reason, the assigning of "county delegates" and the calculation of the "state delegate equivalents" was required to be done by the individual precincts and had to be signed off by whoever was running any given precinct. The app was supposed to help with the rounding process used for assigning county delegates because it wasn't a straightforward process. (It's not just "round to nearest," it's something like "assign based on percentage of voters, determine how many county delegates are left over
It sounds more and more like this company. (Score:2)
People don't understand how software changes (Score:2)
For a software system, it could have one or two or ten completely fatal / invalidating bugs / failure mores one day, then be "probably" perfect the next day if the bugs are all fixed and the system validated.
So finding that a software app had a critical bug is not a reason not to use that software, or software in general.
You should know that the next day the app could be perfect if the bug is fixed properly.
That's hard for
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( If slashdot allowed post editing. )
NEVER!!
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But it IS possible to improve confidence considerably, through good QA and also extensive real-world experience with unchanged software.
And it is possible for a single bit-change to move a body of software from catastrophically wrong to correct.
For example, do you ever pay for stuff with bank cards? Do you ever press the brake pedal in your post year-2000 car, using the ABS system? How could you possibly trust to do either of th
Re:People don't understand how software changes (Score:4, Insightful)
Spoken like a real developer who doesn't understand the difference between a bug and an architecture problem. Most programs that would have failed due to Y2K problems did not have bugs or software quality issues. Most were intentionally designed to use 2-digit dates and had no bugs at all.
Also, if you think it's acceptable to have "bugs" appear/occur randomly from day to day in a "validated" system, it's not. Also, bugs are not random failures that the system is designed to handle. Bugs are when the system behaves in an unpredictable fashion---i.e. not as designed. If you have a system that was validated to do XYZ when ABC is encountered and the system is doing WTF, you have a problem.
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Strictly speaking, it's when the system behaves in an unpredicted fashion, not unpredictable. Most bugs cause the system to do the same, wrong thing every time you test it with the same input, and those bugs are generally easy to find. The ones that can be very, very hard to locate are the ones that do something different every time because it may not be clear just what part of the code is producing the error.
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Bugs are when the system behaves in an unpredictable fashion---i.e. not as designed.
This is too narrow, because it considers only implementation bugs, ignoring design bugs, architecture bugs and requirement bugs. Stuff can go wrong at any point in the translation from ideas about what software should do to the final implementation in-context. And as the elements of the context change, behavior that wasn't buggy can become buggy.
Also, as techno-vampire pointed out, bugs need not be unpredictable, only unpredicted/undesired. Many bugs are completely deterministic in the sense that they'
Russians (Score:1)
My guess it was the Russians hacking again. Those clever Russians are all over the place!
By "errors" I assume they mean (Score:4, Insightful)
It's come out that Bernie Sanders won across the board. Early results had Buttigieg up 1.5%, but there's around 2% of votes for Sanders that were "mistakenly" attributed to other candidates. Funny how it only happened to Sanders, and how once again coin tosses all went against Sanders (probability's funny like that).
I'm not sure the DNC should've blown their cheating wad on Iowa. On the one had they got to deprive Bernie of the Iowa victory lap, on the other hand everybody was already on their toes, and now they're just expecting it. LA is putting candidates they don't like on page 2 of a 2 page electric ballot, which the anti-Establishment Dems are already working to shut down.
Meanwhile Bernie's going to win NH and is projected to clean up on Super Tuesday. Buttigieg will get slaughtered in SC and Alabama, the only states that lean right enough for him to have a chance, because he has a long history of selling out the Black community in his town for the policeman's endorsement. I sub to a few YouTube Channels (Tim Black comes to mind) that covered it quite a bit.
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Remember Joseph Stalin's famous quote [snopes.com]
I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this — who will count the votes, and how.
I hope that this will long be remembered (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope that this will long be remembered and held up as a shining example of:
1. Nepotism/Cronyism
2. Clusterfuck
3. How not to do things (implied by 1 and 2)
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Nope, nothing will come of it. Scandal has no effect, aside from retribution amongst the belligerents. The DNC/GOP will receive its usual 95% of the vote... SNAFU!
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Nope, nothing will come of it. Scandal has no effect, aside from retribution amongst the belligerents. The DNC/GOP will receive its usual 95% of the vote... SNAFU!
How parties run their own affairs is their own business. They're private organizations choosing who they want to send out as candidates. If someone thinks they're irredeemably broken or corrupt, they can just start their own party and attract their own people and operational/marketing budgets. The problem is that smaller parties have a bad habit of running crazy people or insisting on crazy platforms and craziness purity tests. It's hardly surprising that they can't get any traction at the national level.
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If someone thinks they're irredeemably broken or corrupt, they can just start their own party and attract their own people and operational/marketing budgets.
Precisely, I don't blame the politicians or the Party, it just means that most people can't be bothered to look outside the box and are perfectly happy with the devil they know. SNAFU!
Fuck that noise (Score:2)
They're running to be in charge of government, not Prom King. And much of these elections are held on the public's dime. Furthermore, democrats have spent the last two decades screaming that they are entitled to votes, while also screaming at anyone who objects their their corrupt BS of closed primaries, caucuses, and rigging elections in favor of shitbags like Hillary and
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Let them scream all they want. Then vote for somebody else. Problem solved. With enough votes we can oust the DNC/GOP
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Then there's the question of why primary elections are publicly run in the first place. It's a selection process for a private organization, funded and run by the government using public money, in this case by giving that money to another private organization.
4. Voter ID further proven to be nonsense (Score:2)
Vote fraud - Micky Mouse trying to vote is so rare it may as well not exist. Election fraud on the other hand is a proven problem. Forget worrying about poor people voting more than once (may as well worry about polar bear attacks in Florida) and worry about the vote counters instead. We need to move to paper ballots where everything is counted out in the open.
Hows.... (Score:3)
Hello, have you heard of QA? Have you heard of testing? Shadow Inc is a complete amateur hour. Denver doesn't have room for idiots like this, they need to GTFO and move to Austin.
Recent conclusions re: the app are BS. GIGO (Score:3)
The "data inconsistencies" that were presumably causing the backend to reject the vote totals were in the real data stream. There's a NYT article about how the manual data has impossible results.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/0... [nytimes.com]
That implies that the app was functioning fine, and the backend was functioning fine.
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It's a good thing nobody else votes by app (Score:2)
I for one am glad nobody else votes by app.
(conversation offscreen) You mean, here?
Um.
Well, at least it's just in Iowa and King County, Washington State ...
that name... (Score:1)
My mantra here for years. (Score:3)