With the incoming primaries for the Democratic Party coming up, the Iowa Caucus is the origin of political momentum that the potential democrat frontrunners spring off to further their campaign. This caucus is used as the indicator for American people to see where their ideal candidates lie, telling them which candidates have a chance going forward and who doesn’t. This is exactly why the flop of media communication of the results is so problematic, and arguably, dangerous in the long term.
The results of the caucus were supposed to be released within hours of the actual event, but ended up taking days to be “released” to the public by the Democratic National Committee (DNC). While a technological issue is unideal, it happens, however many are skeptical of the legitimacy of the error.
The DNC created a voting app that was used to tabulate the votes in the caucus, but the problem with its usage at all is the fact that according to the Washington Examiner, “Shadow, a technology company that has an investor in the Democratic digital nonprofit organization ACRONYM, was also paid $60,000 over two installments by the Iowa Democratic Party to build an app to help make caucus voting easier and faster for precinct volunteers.
Filings also reveal that the Nevada Democratic Party paid Shadow $58,000 for “website development.”‘ Why is this important? Pete Buttigieg’s campaign is the force that contributed the money to this firm in the first place.
So, just to recap: the candidate that directly contributed to the voting app coincidentally ends up being the only candidate with results posted on time. The results of the other candidates mysteriously disappeared immediately following the caucus. This lack of communication from the Democratic media, whether malicious or not, is extremely problematic. Once the momentum died down, the rest of the candidates’ results just brewed over after the point of anyone caring.
The caucus is supposed to give the public an accurate view of where their candidates stand, but the suspicious circumstances of the voting app fiasco not only decreases the trust of the media from American citizens, which in the decisive political climate we’re in, we desperately need more than ever, but also doesn’t truly give candidates a fair shot at winning. The Iowa Caucus may have been a disaster, but hopefully this isn’t an omen of what’s left to come.