Nevada Democrats won’t use app at center of Iowa delays

The Nevada Democratic Party on Tuesday announced that it will not use the election results app that has been blamed for the delay in results from the Iowa caucuses.

“NV Dems can confidently say that what happened in the Iowa caucus last night will not happen in Nevada on February 22nd. We will not be employing the same app or vendor used in the Iowa caucus,” Nevada State Democratic Party Chairman William McCurdy said in a statement.

“We had already developed a series of backups and redundant reporting systems, and are currently evaluating the best path forward.”

The announcement comes after the results of the Iowa caucuses, which began on Monday at 8 p.m. EST, have yet to be released amid confusion over the app used to transmit results, triggering uproar from supporters and political pundits. The slow rollout has lead many to question Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status.

Price told campaigns early Tuesday afternoon that presidential campaigns should expect that a “majority” of the caucus results will be released at 5 p.m. EST, a source on the call told The Hill.

Nevada was reportedly going to use an app that was built by Shadow, a tech company affiliated with the Democratic nonprofit group Acronym, for collecting and reporting caucus results. Shadow had also developed the app used in Iowa. According to CNN, Nevada was initially planning to use the same app.

According to state campaign finance records, the Iowa Democratic Party paid Shadow $60,000 over two installments in November and December for “website development.”

The Iowa Democratic Party has not responded to requests for comment from The Hill on the payments.

The Nevada Democratic Party paid $58,000 to Shadow in August for “technology services.”

Shadow has not responded to requests for comment on its work with state parties and Democratic campaigns.

Acronym spokesperson Kyle Tharp put out a statement distancing the group from Shadow, saying that Acronym is just an investor in the company.

Several other state parties and campaigns have made disbursements to Shadow.

The Texas Democratic Party paid Shadow $250 for a “texting platform” and “online productivity tools,” according to Federal Election Commission data.

A spokesperson for the party told The Hill that the “contract was not for app development or website services.”

The Wisconsin Democratic Party in November paid Shadow $3,750. A spokesperson for the state party told The Hill the payment was for a peer-to-peer text messaging service.

Former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s (D) campaign paid Shadow $42,500 in July, according to Federal Election Commission data.

“We’ve contracted with this vendor for text messaging services to help us contact voters and it’s totally unrelated to any apps they built for the party,” a spokesperson for the campaign told The Hill.

Former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign paid Shadow $1,225 in July for “text messaging.” The Hill has reached out to the campaign for further information about the disbursement.

The campaign of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who has since suspended her presidential run, made multiple payments to the company for “software.” 

Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Troy Price stressed in a statement Tuesday that “there was not a cyber security intrusion” into the caucus.

“As part of our investigation, we determined with certainty that the underlying data collected via the app was sound,” he continued. “While the app was recording data accurately, it was reporting out only partial data. We have determined that this was due to a coding issue in the reporting system.”