SOO RIN KIM, ABC News•February 4, 2020
What to know about Shadow Inc., the vendor behind Iowa Democrats' caucus app originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
As the results of Monday’s first 2020 presidential election contest in Iowa ground to a halt, all eyes turned toward a mysterious digital app developer with an equally opaque name: Shadow Inc.
Shadow Inc. was a small for-profit tech startup contracted by the Iowa Democratic Party to build an app to record and report its caucus results. But it quickly rose to the national political spotlight Tuesday morning when the much anticipated results of the caucuses were delayed after the party found what it described as "inconsistencies" in the reporting of the results partly due to a "coding issue" in the app's reporting system.
MORE: 2020 Iowa caucus election results
Much of what went wrong Monday night and what caused it still remains unclear.
PHOTO: A volunteer holds a Presidential Preference Card
before the start of a Democratic caucus at Hoover High
School, Feb. 3, 2020, in Des Moines, Iowa.
(Charlie Neibergall/AP)
In a series of tweets on Tuesday, Shadow Inc. insisted that the issues with the app "did not affect the underlying caucus results data" and that the company "worked as quickly as possibly overnight to resolve this issue."
"We sincerely regret the delay in the reporting of the results of last night's Iowa caucuses and the uncertainty it has caused to the candidates, their campaigns, and the Democratic caucus-goers," Shadow tweeted. "As the Democratic Party has confirmed, the underlying data and collection process via Shadow's mobile caucus app was sound and accurate but our process to transmit that caucus results data generated via the app to the [Iowa Democratic Party] was not."
MORE: Iowa caucus results delay ignites debate over state's status as 'first-in-the-nation'
A spokesperson at the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency wrote in a statement that "at this time, we have no reporting of any malicious cyber activity."
"We encourage our election partners to build resilience into their planning and execution procedures, to prepare for issues that may come up during election processes," the spokesperson wrote. "The Iowa Democratic Party is the best source for information on Caucuses and we encourage everyone to review their updates and reporting."
DNC Chair Tom Perez in a statement Tuesday evening -- a full 24 hours since the Iowa chaos -- calling for transparency and accountability of what went off the rails Monday night and declaring that the app will not be used anywhere else during the 2020 primaries.
"What happened last night should never happen again," Perez wrote in the statement. "We have staff working around the clock to assist the Iowa Democratic Party to ensure that all votes are counted. It is clear that the app in question did not function adequately. It will not be used in Nevada or anywhere else during the primary election process. The technology vendor must provide absolute transparent accounting of what went wrong."
Shadow Inc. was launched early last year by liberal-leaning nonprofit ACRONYM, which specializes in providing digital services for Democratic campaigns and committees, as part of its efforts to build what it called a "smarter" technological infrastructure for Democratic campaigns and committees.
At the time of Shadow's launch, ACRONYM's CEO Tara McGowan, who was previously a digital producer for Barack Obama's 2012 campaign, wrote on Twitter that Shadow’s capabilities included syncing data between a volunteer management platform and an SMS tool -- saving campaign organizers from manual data entry and reducing the risk for mistakes.
MORE: Iowa caucuses: What we know and what went wrong
Shadow would allow campaigns to "use the most effective new tools in smarter ways," McGowan tweeted at the time.
In a series of tweets on Tuesday, Shadow Inc. insisted that the issues with the app "did not affect the underlying caucus results data" and that the company "worked as quickly as possibly overnight to resolve this issue."
"We sincerely regret the delay in the reporting of the results of last night's Iowa caucuses and the uncertainty it has caused to the candidates, their campaigns, and the Democratic caucus-goers," Shadow tweeted. "As the Democratic Party has confirmed, the underlying data and collection process via Shadow's mobile caucus app was sound and accurate but our process to transmit that caucus results data generated via the app to the [Iowa Democratic Party] was not."
MORE: Iowa caucus results delay ignites debate over state's status as 'first-in-the-nation'
A spokesperson at the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency wrote in a statement that "at this time, we have no reporting of any malicious cyber activity."
"We encourage our election partners to build resilience into their planning and execution procedures, to prepare for issues that may come up during election processes," the spokesperson wrote. "The Iowa Democratic Party is the best source for information on Caucuses and we encourage everyone to review their updates and reporting."
DNC Chair Tom Perez in a statement Tuesday evening -- a full 24 hours since the Iowa chaos -- calling for transparency and accountability of what went off the rails Monday night and declaring that the app will not be used anywhere else during the 2020 primaries.
"What happened last night should never happen again," Perez wrote in the statement. "We have staff working around the clock to assist the Iowa Democratic Party to ensure that all votes are counted. It is clear that the app in question did not function adequately. It will not be used in Nevada or anywhere else during the primary election process. The technology vendor must provide absolute transparent accounting of what went wrong."
Shadow Inc. was launched early last year by liberal-leaning nonprofit ACRONYM, which specializes in providing digital services for Democratic campaigns and committees, as part of its efforts to build what it called a "smarter" technological infrastructure for Democratic campaigns and committees.
At the time of Shadow's launch, ACRONYM's CEO Tara McGowan, who was previously a digital producer for Barack Obama's 2012 campaign, wrote on Twitter that Shadow’s capabilities included syncing data between a volunteer management platform and an SMS tool -- saving campaign organizers from manual data entry and reducing the risk for mistakes.
MORE: Iowa caucuses: What we know and what went wrong
Shadow would allow campaigns to "use the most effective new tools in smarter ways," McGowan tweeted at the time.
PHOTO: A precinct secretary and other officials look over
documents at a caucus in Des Moines, Iowa, Feb. 3, 2020.
(Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
Shadow's CEO is Gerard Niemira, who was ACRONYM's chief operating officer prior to joining Shadow. He was also previously a Hillary Clinton campaign aide during the 2016 presidential election, according to his Linkedin profile.
And now as questions on Shadow Inc. arise with the failures in the Iowa caucuses, ACRONYM is seeking to distance itself from the app.
MORE: Iowa Democratic Party releases the majority of caucus results
In a statement late Monday night posted on Twitter, ACRONYM spokesperson Kyle Tharp wrote that ACRONYM is a "nonprofit organization and not a technology company and that it has not provided any technology to the Iowa Democratic Party." Tharp said Shadow is just one of multiple for-profit companies the group has invested in.
"We are reading confirmed reports of Shadow's work with the Iowa Democratic Party on Twitter, and we, like everyone else, are eagerly awaiting more information from the Iowa Democratic Party with respect to what happened," Tharp added.
pic.twitter.com/dkWBvMvNzW
— Kyle Tharp (@kylewilsontharp) February 4, 2020
ACRONYM has also taken down from its website a blog post penned by Niemira at the time of Shadow's launching, which describes Shadow Inc. as a "technology company that will exist under the ACRONYM umbrella." Niemira further details, "As part of Shadow’s technology suite, ACRONYM will continue to license Groundbase technologies to campaigns and organizations across the progressive movement." It's unclear when exactly the page was taken down.
MORE: Iowa caucuses considered a 'crucible' of 2020 primary: Here's how they work
The Democratic Party had previously declined to release information about its vendors for the early caucuses and the only trace of Shadow's involvement in the Hawkeye State until now has been the party committee's payments to the company totaling $63,183 in November and December for "website development," according to a campaign finance disclosure report.
The House Administration Committee's ranking member Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Ill., wrote in a statement on Tuesday that the Iowa Democratic Party didn't receive any technical assistance available from the Department of Homeland Security to inspect the app before its use.
"Yesterday, we saw a breakdown of the Iowa Democratic Party's technology that could have been easily preventable," Davis wrote. "Not only are there no regulations around this new election technology, but they did not take advantage of the resources of the Department of Homeland Security to check the security and functionality of this new app."
Election security experts told ABC News that while a paper trail should eventually be able to produce accurate results, Monday night's debacle adds to existing concerns over the country’s election system.
"I do think it's a warning to those running our primaries and general election that they must be prepared for system-wide failure," Lawrence Nordern, director of the Election Reform Program at NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice told ABC News.
“It undermines people's trust because people expect that election officials are going to be able to produce winners and do so in a transparent way," professor Richard Hansen, an election law scholar at the University of California, Irvine told ABC News. "They have lost both the transparency and the finality at this point. And it's very worrisome."
Shadow's CEO is Gerard Niemira, who was ACRONYM's chief operating officer prior to joining Shadow. He was also previously a Hillary Clinton campaign aide during the 2016 presidential election, according to his Linkedin profile.
And now as questions on Shadow Inc. arise with the failures in the Iowa caucuses, ACRONYM is seeking to distance itself from the app.
MORE: Iowa Democratic Party releases the majority of caucus results
In a statement late Monday night posted on Twitter, ACRONYM spokesperson Kyle Tharp wrote that ACRONYM is a "nonprofit organization and not a technology company and that it has not provided any technology to the Iowa Democratic Party." Tharp said Shadow is just one of multiple for-profit companies the group has invested in.
"We are reading confirmed reports of Shadow's work with the Iowa Democratic Party on Twitter, and we, like everyone else, are eagerly awaiting more information from the Iowa Democratic Party with respect to what happened," Tharp added.
pic.twitter.com/dkWBvMvNzW
— Kyle Tharp (@kylewilsontharp) February 4, 2020
ACRONYM has also taken down from its website a blog post penned by Niemira at the time of Shadow's launching, which describes Shadow Inc. as a "technology company that will exist under the ACRONYM umbrella." Niemira further details, "As part of Shadow’s technology suite, ACRONYM will continue to license Groundbase technologies to campaigns and organizations across the progressive movement." It's unclear when exactly the page was taken down.
MORE: Iowa caucuses considered a 'crucible' of 2020 primary: Here's how they work
The Democratic Party had previously declined to release information about its vendors for the early caucuses and the only trace of Shadow's involvement in the Hawkeye State until now has been the party committee's payments to the company totaling $63,183 in November and December for "website development," according to a campaign finance disclosure report.
The House Administration Committee's ranking member Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Ill., wrote in a statement on Tuesday that the Iowa Democratic Party didn't receive any technical assistance available from the Department of Homeland Security to inspect the app before its use.
"Yesterday, we saw a breakdown of the Iowa Democratic Party's technology that could have been easily preventable," Davis wrote. "Not only are there no regulations around this new election technology, but they did not take advantage of the resources of the Department of Homeland Security to check the security and functionality of this new app."
Election security experts told ABC News that while a paper trail should eventually be able to produce accurate results, Monday night's debacle adds to existing concerns over the country’s election system.
"I do think it's a warning to those running our primaries and general election that they must be prepared for system-wide failure," Lawrence Nordern, director of the Election Reform Program at NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice told ABC News.
“It undermines people's trust because people expect that election officials are going to be able to produce winners and do so in a transparent way," professor Richard Hansen, an election law scholar at the University of California, Irvine told ABC News. "They have lost both the transparency and the finality at this point. And it's very worrisome."
PHOTO: Local residents check-in after arriving at an Iowa
Democratic caucus at Hoover High School, Feb. 3, 2020,
in Des Moines, Iowa. (Charlie Neibergall/AP)MORE: DNC rejects plans by Iowa and Nevada to hold 'virtual' caucuses
Last year, the Democratic National Committee rejected Iowa and Nevada's plans to hold "virtual" caucuses citing security concerns, causing the two state parties to scramble together revised plans just months ahead of the early primaries. Security and technological concerns have continued to plague the state parties, but the Democratic Party said it had thoroughly vetted its technology.
The Nevada Democratic Party, which is slated to hold its Democratic caucuses later this month on Feb. 22, had also paid Shadow Inc. $58,000 for "technology services" in August last year, an FEC record shows.
The state’s Democratic Party announced on Tuesday morning that it "will not be employing the same app or vendor used in the Iowa caucus." It's unclear if the decision to not use the same vendor was made before Monday's results.
FEC records show that a number of other campaigns and state committees have also paid the firm, including $42,500 from the campaign of former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg in July for "software rights and subscriptions," FEC records show. The Buttigieg campaign told ABC News the payment was for the vendor's texting services.
The presidential campaigns of former Vice President Joe Biden and New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, as well as state Democratic Party committees in Wisconsin and Texas, hired Shadow for its "fundraising consulting," "text messages" and "software" services earlier last year.
Texas Democratic Party spokesperson Abhi Rahman told ABC News that the party committee only used Shadow for its texting contracts, not for app development or website services.
Because ACRONYM's nonprofit status doesn't require donor disclosure, much of its source of funding is unknown to the public.
But FEC records show that ACRONYM's super PAC, PACRONYM, designed to help Democrats in 2020, is bankrolled by a host of liberal megadonors.
Last year, under the leadership of McGowan, who was also previously the director of strategy with Priorities USA, one of the largest Democratic-aligned outside groups, PACRONYM raised more than $7 million, receiving a series of eight-figure checks from wealthy supporters including financier Seth Klarman and Donald Sussman, as well as $500,000 from Steven Spielberg.
The Iowa Democratic Party has began releasing its caucus results late Tuesday afternoon. With 62% of precincts reporting, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg had 27% of the vote and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders had 25%, according to the Iowa Democratic Party. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren had 18%, former Vice President Joe Biden had 16% and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar had 13% of the vote.
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., wrote in a statement Tuesday afternoon that "the continuing chaos in Iowa is illustrative of our overall failure to take sufficient steps to protect the integrity of our election systems."
"We need to look holistically at protecting the security, integrity, and resiliency of election systems – from registration systems, to e-poll books, voting machines, tabulation machines, and election night reporting systems," Warner wrote.
ABC News' Matthew Vann, Fergall Gallagher, Lucien Bruggeman and Ali Dukakis contributed to this report.
Silicon Valley sells snake oil 'solutions'. The Democratic party fell for them
Siva Vaidhyanathan, The Guardian•February 6, 2020
Photograph: Craig Lassig/EPA
As I write this sentence I have no idea which candidates prevailed in the Democratic caucuses held in Iowa on Monday. That’s fine with me.
We don’t know the results because the Iowa Democratic party fell into the same mania that has twisted the American economy, culture and political world for almost 40 years: the thoughtless pursuit of immediate gratification through the expensive installation of complex, fragile technological systems.
Related: Joe Biden flopped in Iowa. And so did the Democratic party's reputation | Nathan Robinson
The Iowa party spent thousands of dollars contracting with an inexperienced mobile application developer called – in all seriousness – Shadow to develop a mobile phone app to gather and report the vote and delegate tallies from the 1,681 precincts in the state.
The failure of the app has embarrassed the Iowa party and convinced the Nevada Democratic party, which will host similar caucuses on 22 February, to abandon its plans to use the same service.
This might seem at first glance to be a serious blow to the image of the national Democratic party and its candidates’ efforts to defeat Donald Trump. But I’d argue that it could be the best thing that could have happened.
The Democrats needed a bracing embarrassment early, so they could learn from it. Had things worked smoothly in Iowa, the systematic flaws and errors of thought that have dominated Democratic strategy for years might have revealed themselves months later when it really mattered.
So what’s good for the Democrats in this series of events? The Iowa glitch shows party leaders that their challenges cannot be addressed by fancy sales pitches from Silicon Valley snake oil salespeople.
No one needs to know just 48 hours after a long, complex, decentralized deliberative event what the results are
Hopefully this experience will also teach us a lesson about patience. No one needs to know just 48 hours after a long, complex, decentralized deliberative event what the results are. There are only 41 pledged delegates to the Democratic national convention up for grabs in Iowa. That’s about 1% of the 3,979 pledged national delegates. So the “winner” of Iowa barely has a lead over her or his competitors.
We should all walk away from Iowa 2020 more patient and circumspect. Speed kills democracy. Slow democracy is healthy democracy.
The Democratic party is operating under the mistaken assumption that Trump’s 2016 campaign had some sophisticated technological advantage over Hillary Clinton’s campaign. That could not be more wrong. In 2016 Clinton had elaborate voter databases and dedicated platforms for organizers and volunteers to deploy in the field to identify and motivate voters.
The very sophistication was the downfall. Organizers complained that the data was slow and outdated. The app interface was clunky. Money could not buy enthusiasm or discipline.
Instead of building elaborate predictive models and licensing specialized software like Clinton and the Democrats, the Trump digital campaign handed the reins to Brad Parscale, a neophyte to national campaigns whose experience was limited to helping some local races and building some websites.
To find new supporters, urge them to donate and motivate them to show up at rallies and knock on doors, Parscale and the Trump team used a dazzlingly obvious technological platform: Facebook.
Trump’s digital team had a limited budget and limited technological expertise, but experience with Facebook ads. So they just did what worked. Yes, Facebook helped Trump by embedding staff with the campaign to make sure it could use its services effectively. But there was nothing sophisticated or expensive about the Trump 2016 digital campaign. For 2020, Trump campaign manager Parscale is apparently planning a more intense version of the same, with more money.
If the Democrats take one lesson from Iowa, it should be that simple, dependable technology is better than flimsy, new technology. That technology includes paper, an ancient technology that still works best for recording and counting votes.
Here is a bigger lesson: it’s not about the app. Just as we fool ourselves by thinking that an app will fix things, we fool ourselves by blaming an app. All technologies are embedded in webs of human relations. We say the app failed because the systems failed – humans failed. Humans built a system too complex to handle simple tasks. We often fool ourselves into thinking that speed and convenience are paramount values. So we maximized speed over reliability, data over truth, attention over depth.
Maybe the Iowa glitch, one caused because caucuses are poorly designed rituals and retrofitting custom software to them only widens their flaws, will show us a better way forward. There is no reason to deploy gizmos and magic spells when simple, steady, slow work can win – as always. Democracy is not for the impatient. Democracy is too important to be trusted to the “innovators”.
Siva Vaidhyanathan is Guardian columnist, a professor of media studies at the University of Virginia, and the author of Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy
As I write this sentence I have no idea which candidates prevailed in the Democratic caucuses held in Iowa on Monday. That’s fine with me.
We don’t know the results because the Iowa Democratic party fell into the same mania that has twisted the American economy, culture and political world for almost 40 years: the thoughtless pursuit of immediate gratification through the expensive installation of complex, fragile technological systems.
Related: Joe Biden flopped in Iowa. And so did the Democratic party's reputation | Nathan Robinson
The Iowa party spent thousands of dollars contracting with an inexperienced mobile application developer called – in all seriousness – Shadow to develop a mobile phone app to gather and report the vote and delegate tallies from the 1,681 precincts in the state.
The failure of the app has embarrassed the Iowa party and convinced the Nevada Democratic party, which will host similar caucuses on 22 February, to abandon its plans to use the same service.
This might seem at first glance to be a serious blow to the image of the national Democratic party and its candidates’ efforts to defeat Donald Trump. But I’d argue that it could be the best thing that could have happened.
The Democrats needed a bracing embarrassment early, so they could learn from it. Had things worked smoothly in Iowa, the systematic flaws and errors of thought that have dominated Democratic strategy for years might have revealed themselves months later when it really mattered.
So what’s good for the Democrats in this series of events? The Iowa glitch shows party leaders that their challenges cannot be addressed by fancy sales pitches from Silicon Valley snake oil salespeople.
No one needs to know just 48 hours after a long, complex, decentralized deliberative event what the results are
Hopefully this experience will also teach us a lesson about patience. No one needs to know just 48 hours after a long, complex, decentralized deliberative event what the results are. There are only 41 pledged delegates to the Democratic national convention up for grabs in Iowa. That’s about 1% of the 3,979 pledged national delegates. So the “winner” of Iowa barely has a lead over her or his competitors.
We should all walk away from Iowa 2020 more patient and circumspect. Speed kills democracy. Slow democracy is healthy democracy.
The Democratic party is operating under the mistaken assumption that Trump’s 2016 campaign had some sophisticated technological advantage over Hillary Clinton’s campaign. That could not be more wrong. In 2016 Clinton had elaborate voter databases and dedicated platforms for organizers and volunteers to deploy in the field to identify and motivate voters.
The very sophistication was the downfall. Organizers complained that the data was slow and outdated. The app interface was clunky. Money could not buy enthusiasm or discipline.
Instead of building elaborate predictive models and licensing specialized software like Clinton and the Democrats, the Trump digital campaign handed the reins to Brad Parscale, a neophyte to national campaigns whose experience was limited to helping some local races and building some websites.
To find new supporters, urge them to donate and motivate them to show up at rallies and knock on doors, Parscale and the Trump team used a dazzlingly obvious technological platform: Facebook.
Trump’s digital team had a limited budget and limited technological expertise, but experience with Facebook ads. So they just did what worked. Yes, Facebook helped Trump by embedding staff with the campaign to make sure it could use its services effectively. But there was nothing sophisticated or expensive about the Trump 2016 digital campaign. For 2020, Trump campaign manager Parscale is apparently planning a more intense version of the same, with more money.
If the Democrats take one lesson from Iowa, it should be that simple, dependable technology is better than flimsy, new technology. That technology includes paper, an ancient technology that still works best for recording and counting votes.
Here is a bigger lesson: it’s not about the app. Just as we fool ourselves by thinking that an app will fix things, we fool ourselves by blaming an app. All technologies are embedded in webs of human relations. We say the app failed because the systems failed – humans failed. Humans built a system too complex to handle simple tasks. We often fool ourselves into thinking that speed and convenience are paramount values. So we maximized speed over reliability, data over truth, attention over depth.
Maybe the Iowa glitch, one caused because caucuses are poorly designed rituals and retrofitting custom software to them only widens their flaws, will show us a better way forward. There is no reason to deploy gizmos and magic spells when simple, steady, slow work can win – as always. Democracy is not for the impatient. Democracy is too important to be trusted to the “innovators”.
Siva Vaidhyanathan is Guardian columnist, a professor of media studies at the University of Virginia, and the author of Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy
No comments:
Post a Comment