How the Iowa caucus app went wrong and how open source could have helped
1 min read
Feb 07, 2020
Opinion: It was incompetence, not politics, that led to the Iowa caucus app misfiring. Above all, it was poor programming. Open-source software techniques could have prevented this blunder.
When theIowa Democratic Caucus results were delayed by an application foul-upBernie Sanders supporters were outraged at a stolen victory.Now, as the results trickle in, andSanders' results turned out OK, they've quieted down. But the fact remains that the application not only fouled up caucus results reporting, but it also made people even less trusting of the election process.
Most of the Iowa caucus post-mortem has focused onShadow, the company behind the app, and its parent organization,Acronym. The root problem wasn't with the groups behind the misfiring application, IowaReporterApp; it was with a fundamentally flawed software development process.
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