US primaries delayed due to app not working

The Democratic primary in the US state of Iowa has been delayed by problems with a new app. It was used during the elections to report results, but that went wrong. The party uses paper results to verify the result.

In a statement, a spokesperson said there were “inconsistencies in measuring three different sets of results,” Bloomberg wrote. The counters have therefore temporarily switched to paper votes and photos of results to count the votes after all. It is therefore only a matter of delaying the end result, but the result remains intact. “The underlying data and paper trail are correct. It will only take longer before the results are known,” says the spokesperson.

The app was used during the Democratic Party primary in the US state of Iowa. That is an election that is held in all kinds of states with the aim of choosing a Democratic presidential candidate. This candidate will most likely face incumbent President Donald Trump. During the election in Iowa, a new app was used to validate results. The app was used in 1700 constituencies in the state to forward the results to party headquarters.

Even before the election started, some media already reported that the app was causing problems. For example, vote counters would not be able to log in to the app and there were cases where the app crashed on the smartphones used. The Democratic Party quickly stated that it was a usability issue and not a hack or other attack.