On February 3rd, Iowans gathered across the state to vote in their first-in-the-nation caucuses. While the Republican side was an overwhelming stomp from incumbent President Donald J. Trump, observers were waiting with bated breath for the first votes in the Democratic primary to be counted. Unfortunately, things didn’t quite go as planned. As the hours rolled on by, no results were transmitted to the people, to the media, or even the campaigns themselves. Instead, the Iowa Democratic Party cited an “abundance of caution” and postponed the release of vote totals to Tuesday afternoon.

So what exactly happened? Well, according the IDP, precinct chairs were given a newly implemented app (designed by a contracted firm called Shadow Inc.) to use for reporting vote totals to the state party. This had already raised red flags regarding cyber-security concerns, and many critics pointed to possible breaches from foreign hackers as reason to abandon the app. Nevertheless, caucus managers totaled up votes after realignment and attempted to use the app to submit votes. Across the state, the app failed spectacularly. As party officials were unable to submit their results, they then tried to use the traditional method of calling in to the state’s headquarters. This resulted in severe backlogs across the state, and a total meltdown of the caucus system.  Since then, the Nevada Democratic Party has announced that they will not be using the same app for their own caucuses on February 22nd.

As of 2/5/2020, only 71% of results have been fully confirmed and released by the IDP. Based off of these results, Senator Bernie Sanders is currently leading in the popular vote, while former mayor Pete Buttigieg is ahead in terms of state delegates. Senator Elizabeth Warren sits in 3rd place, and Former Vice President Joe Biden trails far behind in 4th place, severely under-performing expectations for such a high profile campaign. For now, it doesn’t appear that any other candidates will reach the necessary threshold for national delegates. But as we walk away from Iowa, the very legitimacy of the caucus format and Democratic primary has already been thrown into jeopardy.