Sanders camp suspicious of Microsoft’s influence in Iowa Caucus
Sanders camp suspicious of Microsoft's influence in Iowa Caucus
01/27/16 06:05 PM—UPDATED 01/28/16 02:19 PM
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By http://www.msnbc.com/byline/alex-seitz-wald
DES MOINES, Iowa – The campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is raising questions about the involvement of Microsoft in the Iowa Caucuses, now just days away, and has built an independent system to check the official results.
For the first time this year, Microsoft partnered with the Iowa Democratic and Republican Parties to provide a technology platform with which the parties will run their caucuses. The software giant created separate mobile apps for each party, which officials at hundreds of caucuses across the state will use to report out results from individual precincts to party headquarters for tabulation.
RELATED: Can Bernie Sanders handle the burn?
The arrangement has aroused the suspicions of aides to Sanders, who regularly warn that corporate power and the billionaire class are trying to hijack democracy. Pete D’Alessandro, who is running the Iowa portion of Sanders’ campaign, questioned the motives of the major multinational corporation in an interview with MSNBC: “You’d have to ask yourself why they’d want to give something like that away for free.”
The Sanders campaign has built their own reporting system to check the results from the official Microsoft-backed app. It has trained its precinct captain on using the app, which is designed to be as user friendly as possible, and the campaign will also staff a hotline system as further redundancy.
“It’s just a way that our folks can have an app that we trust to get the numbers to us in a timely fashion,” D’Alessandro said. “I’m always going to be more for sure on the stuff that my people had control over the entire time… If there are any problems, we can spot them right away.”
Other Sanders aides noted thathttps://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/toprecips.php?id=D000000115&type=P&sort=A&cycle=2008several hundred thousand dollars to Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton over her career, and questioned why the Iowa Democratic Party didn’t partner with a software company based in Iowa.
Asked why the company is interested in the caucuses, Microsoft said they are committed to creating a fair and impartial platform. “Microsoft is providing technology and services solely to administer and facilitate a neutral, accurate, efficient reporting system for the caucuses,” the company said in a statement to MSNBC. ”We are proud to partner with the Iowa Democratic and Republican parties to ensure accurate results on caucus night.”
Independent reporting systems like the one Sanders’ campaign built are not uncommon. Clinton’s campaign is also preparing its own backup reporting system involving an app and telephone hotline component, according to a campaign aide.
Some Iowa Democrats have raised concerns about the state party’s readiness for the critical caucuses on Monday. As many as 200 precinct-level positions were still unfilled as off a few days ago, and several campaigns have complained about late-stage caucus-site location changes.
D’Alessandro said he has complete confidence in the Iowa Democratic Party, and “absolute trust on integrity,” explaining that his own issue was with Microsoft only.
Sam Lau, a spokesperson for the Iowa Democratic Party, defended the partnership with Microsoft. “The Iowa Democratic Party has always believed in the importance of new election technology, and we have been proud to partner with both the Republican Party of Iowa and Microsoft on our new 2016 Iowa Caucuses reporting app that has been in the works for more than a year. Microsoft and their App partner, InterKnowlogy, are global leaders in the technology industry, and we completely trust the integrity of their staff and the app. The app will help make caucus reporting more efficient, accurate and secure, and we look forward to seeing it in action on caucus night,” he said in a statement.
RELATED: Hillary camp steps up Sanders attacks in Iowa
Skepticism about corporate involvement in election systems is nothing new. During the 2004 presidential election, for instance, there was widespread suspicion on the left about Diebold voting machines.
With Sanders supporters already suspicious of meddling from forces they see as hostile to their candidate, including the Democratic Party and corporations, the backup system could help tamp down questions and conspiracy theories if results are contested.
Sanders Campaign: Party Lost 5 Percent of Iowa Vote
By Jason DickPosted at 2-2-2016
http://atr.rollcall.com/sanders-campaign-party-lost-5-percent-of-iowa-vote/
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The Iowa Democratic Party has lost the results of 90 precincts. (Photo Courtesy Brent Roske)
DES MOINES, Iowa — The Iowa Democratic Party informed the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernard Sanders late Monday night that it has no results for 90 precincts across the state, which could account for as much as 5 percent of the total vote. And the party has asked the campaigns for help in getting a tally for those missing results.
“We are, right now, calling all our precinct captains on precincts where we have knowledge of what’s missing, to report what we think happened there,” a visibly irate Robert Becker, Sanders’ state director told Roll Call after Sanders’ speech at the Holiday Inn near the Des Moines airport.
“They’ve asked the other campaigns to do the same thing. At the end of the day, there’s probably going to be squabbles on it,” he added.
An Iowa Democratic Party official disputed Becker’s characterization.
“We are currently getting results from our small number of outstanding precincts, and results continue to be reported on our public website,” an Iowa Democratic Party official told Roll Call. “The reports of precincts without chairs are inaccurate. These outstanding precincts have chairs who we are in the process of contacting to get their results. It is inaccurate to report that these precincts did not have chairs.”
“We have reached out to the campaigns for help in contacting the chairs for our outstanding precincts. We are not taking results from the campaigns. We are taking them from the chairs who are in these precincts,” the official added.
Clinton and Sanders were locked in a virtual tie at the conclusion of Monday’s caucuses, with both at 49 percent and Clinton clinging to a razor-thin lead.
“The party has a responsibility to staff 1,681 individual precincts. And what we’re seeing right now is that they had no-shows. People not showing up with the materials, not showing up with the app to report it. And when they’re telling us an hour ago that they have basically lost 90 precincts, it’s an outrage,” Becker said. “It’s insulting to the people who worked their asses off across this state that they can’t come up with people to cover these things.”
Attempts to reach the Clinton campaign early Tuesday were unsuccessful.
“I’m assuming they’re in the same boat. And they should be just as outraged as we are,” Becker fumed.
Sanders camp suspicious of Microsoft's influence in Iowa Caucus
01/27/16 06:05 PM—UPDATED 01/28/16 02:19 PM
9 share 502
By http://www.msnbc.com/byline/alex-seitz-wald
DES MOINES, Iowa – The campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is raising questions about the involvement of Microsoft in the Iowa Caucuses, now just days away, and has built an independent system to check the official results.
For the first time this year, Microsoft partnered with the Iowa Democratic and Republican Parties to provide a technology platform with which the parties will run their caucuses. The software giant created separate mobile apps for each party, which officials at hundreds of caucuses across the state will use to report out results from individual precincts to party headquarters for tabulation.
RELATED: Can Bernie Sanders handle the burn?
The arrangement has aroused the suspicions of aides to Sanders, who regularly warn that corporate power and the billionaire class are trying to hijack democracy. Pete D’Alessandro, who is running the Iowa portion of Sanders’ campaign, questioned the motives of the major multinational corporation in an interview with MSNBC: “You’d have to ask yourself why they’d want to give something like that away for free.”
The Sanders campaign has built their own reporting system to check the results from the official Microsoft-backed app. It has trained its precinct captain on using the app, which is designed to be as user friendly as possible, and the campaign will also staff a hotline system as further redundancy.
“It’s just a way that our folks can have an app that we trust to get the numbers to us in a timely fashion,” D’Alessandro said. “I’m always going to be more for sure on the stuff that my people had control over the entire time… If there are any problems, we can spot them right away.”
Other Sanders aides noted thathttps://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/toprecips.php?id=D000000115&type=P&sort=A&cycle=2008several hundred thousand dollars to Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton over her career, and questioned why the Iowa Democratic Party didn’t partner with a software company based in Iowa.
Asked why the company is interested in the caucuses, Microsoft said they are committed to creating a fair and impartial platform. “Microsoft is providing technology and services solely to administer and facilitate a neutral, accurate, efficient reporting system for the caucuses,” the company said in a statement to MSNBC. ”We are proud to partner with the Iowa Democratic and Republican parties to ensure accurate results on caucus night.”
Independent reporting systems like the one Sanders’ campaign built are not uncommon. Clinton’s campaign is also preparing its own backup reporting system involving an app and telephone hotline component, according to a campaign aide.
Some Iowa Democrats have raised concerns about the state party’s readiness for the critical caucuses on Monday. As many as 200 precinct-level positions were still unfilled as off a few days ago, and several campaigns have complained about late-stage caucus-site location changes.
D’Alessandro said he has complete confidence in the Iowa Democratic Party, and “absolute trust on integrity,” explaining that his own issue was with Microsoft only.
Sam Lau, a spokesperson for the Iowa Democratic Party, defended the partnership with Microsoft. “The Iowa Democratic Party has always believed in the importance of new election technology, and we have been proud to partner with both the Republican Party of Iowa and Microsoft on our new 2016 Iowa Caucuses reporting app that has been in the works for more than a year. Microsoft and their App partner, InterKnowlogy, are global leaders in the technology industry, and we completely trust the integrity of their staff and the app. The app will help make caucus reporting more efficient, accurate and secure, and we look forward to seeing it in action on caucus night,” he said in a statement.
RELATED: Hillary camp steps up Sanders attacks in Iowa
Skepticism about corporate involvement in election systems is nothing new. During the 2004 presidential election, for instance, there was widespread suspicion on the left about Diebold voting machines.
With Sanders supporters already suspicious of meddling from forces they see as hostile to their candidate, including the Democratic Party and corporations, the backup system could help tamp down questions and conspiracy theories if results are contested.
Sanders Campaign: Party Lost 5 Percent of Iowa Vote
By Jason DickPosted at 2-2-2016
http://atr.rollcall.com/sanders-campaign-party-lost-5-percent-of-iowa-vote/
0 Comments
©Reprints
The Iowa Democratic Party has lost the results of 90 precincts. (Photo Courtesy Brent Roske)
DES MOINES, Iowa — The Iowa Democratic Party informed the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernard Sanders late Monday night that it has no results for 90 precincts across the state, which could account for as much as 5 percent of the total vote. And the party has asked the campaigns for help in getting a tally for those missing results.
“We are, right now, calling all our precinct captains on precincts where we have knowledge of what’s missing, to report what we think happened there,” a visibly irate Robert Becker, Sanders’ state director told Roll Call after Sanders’ speech at the Holiday Inn near the Des Moines airport.
“They’ve asked the other campaigns to do the same thing. At the end of the day, there’s probably going to be squabbles on it,” he added.
An Iowa Democratic Party official disputed Becker’s characterization.
“We are currently getting results from our small number of outstanding precincts, and results continue to be reported on our public website,” an Iowa Democratic Party official told Roll Call. “The reports of precincts without chairs are inaccurate. These outstanding precincts have chairs who we are in the process of contacting to get their results. It is inaccurate to report that these precincts did not have chairs.”
“We have reached out to the campaigns for help in contacting the chairs for our outstanding precincts. We are not taking results from the campaigns. We are taking them from the chairs who are in these precincts,” the official added.
Clinton and Sanders were locked in a virtual tie at the conclusion of Monday’s caucuses, with both at 49 percent and Clinton clinging to a razor-thin lead.
“The party has a responsibility to staff 1,681 individual precincts. And what we’re seeing right now is that they had no-shows. People not showing up with the materials, not showing up with the app to report it. And when they’re telling us an hour ago that they have basically lost 90 precincts, it’s an outrage,” Becker said. “It’s insulting to the people who worked their asses off across this state that they can’t come up with people to cover these things.”
Attempts to reach the Clinton campaign early Tuesday were unsuccessful.
“I’m assuming they’re in the same boat. And they should be just as outraged as we are,” Becker fumed.
