Hand votes are counted for their candidates via precinct during the Democratic Caucus at Rancho High School on Saturday, February 20, 2016.
Published Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2020 | 10:31 a.m.
Updated Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2020 | 7:05 p.m.
The Nevada Democratic Party says it won’t be using the same app being blamed for delays in reporting the results of Monday night’s Democratic caucuses in Iowa.
William McCurdy II, chairman of the Nevada party, said that “what happened in the Iowa caucus last night will not happen in Nevada” when Democrats conduct their caucuses Feb. 22.
“We will not be employing the same app or vendor used in the Iowa caucus,” McCurdy said in a statement this morning. “We had already developed a series of backups and redundant reporting systems, and are currently evaluating the best path forward.”
The Iowa Democratic caucuses ended Monday night with a delay of complete results that extended into Tuesday evening.
At the center of the troubles in Iowa is a cellphone app to expedite reports from caucus sites around the state. Iowa Democrats reported “inconsistencies” in the reported results, though it was unclear what those were.
The Nevada Democratic Party, like the Iowa party, has declined to say who developed its app. But a spokesperson for one of the Democratic presidential campaigns confirmed to the Associated Press that a company called Shadow Inc. created the Iowa caucus reporting app and the Nevada app as well.
According to filings with the Nevada Secretary of State, the Nevada Democratic Party has paid more than $50,000 through three payments to Shadow. The party had planned to use a Shadow app but decided to scrap the plan after the Iowa delay, a party staffer said.
Nevada party officials in a press call Tuesday evening said that while there is no plan currently in place to replace the app, there are multiple backup options being discussed. They did not specify which options they were favoring.
“Whether that is a different app or getting back to basics and going on paper, we’re going to use every single option that we can,” said Alana Mounce, the executive director of the state’s Democratic Party.
Mounce said the party is focused on making sure the change does not affect the early-voting process rolled out this caucus cycle.
“We’re committed to continue using the early-voting process and creating a plan and a process to be able to make sure that that stays intact and is part of the early-voting and caucus day process,” she said.
Democrats in Nevada, third-in-line to cast votes on the 2020 presidential field, had planned to use more technology than Iowa in their caucuses. They had announced plans to use two apps: one to tabulate results and a second preloaded onto tablets for voters to use at caucus sites to cast online votes during four days of early voting.
Shadow tweeted today that it regretted the delay, but that the problems did not affect the underlying data. The Iowa results are accurate, it said.
"As the Iowa 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," the company tweeted from its official account.
Shadow is a tech company that specializes in political data collection. For example, on its website, it touts one of its tools, "lightrail," as an efficient way to collect data on voters, volunteers and donors.
The company's website says it has been involved with the presidential campaigns of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former President Barack Obama.
Despite the problems in Iowa, former Democratic U.S. Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada said he did not anticipate any trouble with the caucuses here.
"In Nevada, we have built the best state party operation in the country. I am 100% confident that what happened in Iowa will not happen in Nevada," he said via Twitter.
Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak echoed Reid’s comments. “I am confident in the Nevada State Democratic Party, and I trust they will execute a successful caucus on Feb. 22,” he said in a statement.
Chris Miller, the former chair of the Las Vegas-based Clark County Democratic Party, said it would be hard for Nevada Democrats to make any late-stage changes at this point.
“From what I’ve seen, the party’s done everything it can to make for a smooth process. Unfortunately, there will be some who will look at Iowa and think that process is already damaged,” Miller said.
Donna West, the current Clark County chair, said she was not worried.
“I see this as an opportunity to learn. We’ve got time,” West said, deferring further questions about the process to the state party.
The Nevada campaigns of many of the top Democratic presidential candidates declined to comment today.
An official with one Democratic presidential campaign in Nevada who was not authorized to speak publicly said because of the similarity to the Iowa Democratic Party’s plans, there was mounting concern about Nevada’s ability to pull off a smooth process and Nevada Democrats needed to offer more information to reassure the campaigns.
Shelby Wiltz, the caucus director for the Nevada Democrats, told The Associated Press in a statement in January that the party was committed to making it “the most accessible, expansive and transparent caucus yet.”
“We developed a reporting application in order to streamline the caucus process and provide our volunteers with additional support to run their caucuses as efficiently as possible,” the statement said. “We’ve gone through several rounds of testing and continue to work with a team of security experts with varying backgrounds to ensure the integrity of our process.”
Unlike in Iowa, where party officials said they were not allowing precinct chairs to download the new mobile app until just before the caucuses, Nevada precinct chairs have been practicing with the app for about a month, local Democrats said.
Miller said the state party also held a dry run of the early voting app last weekend at a meeting of its governing members. The party’s central committee members did a mock registration, were given a paper ballot and went to a tablet, where they first cast their votes online, indicating their top candidate and their next choices. They then filled out paper ballots as a backup record of their votes.
Miller said the process was easy.
David Damore, a political science professor at UNLV, said the ramifications of the Iowa chaos could affect turnout and participation in the Nevada caucuses, depending on how campaigns or candidates react to the ultimate results.
“If Iowa can get this right and come up with a credible explanation and the campaigns themselves don’t make much stink about the legitimacy of the results, I think by the time we get (to Nevada)... that those issues should dissipate a little bit,” Damore said. “Now, if you get a big fight from the campaigns about the process and all that kind of stuff, that keeps that story alive.”
Neither the Nevada Secretary of State’s Office nor county election officials have a role in the Nevada presidential caucus process, the secretary’s office noted.
While state election officials encourage participation in the process, the caucuses are run entirely by the parties, which make all decisions with regards to administering the caucuses, including the technology used to support the process, the office said.
Las Vegas Sun reporter John Sadler and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
