Iowa Democratic Party chairman says he had ‘no knowledge’ of DHS offer to vet vote app

The head of the Iowa Democratic Party said Tuesday he had “no knowledge” of a reported offer by the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) cyber agency to vet the vote tabulation app that caused delays during the Iowa caucuses on Monday night.

“We had no knowledge of DHS making that offer to us,” Iowa Democratic Party (IDP) Chairman Troy Price said during a press conference to address the handling of the results of the caucus.

Price’s comments came after acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said during an appearance on “Fox and Friends” earlier Tuesday that the state Democratic Party had turned down an offer to vet the app.

“Our Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has offered to test that app from a hacking perspective,” Wolf said, noting that the offer was “declined” and that “we’re seeing a couple of issues with it.”

“I would say right now, we don’t see any malicious cyber activity going on,” he added.

Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to The Hill’s request for comment.

The IDP had said in a statement released Tuesday morning that the app, built by the company Shadow Inc., had “coding issues” resulting in it only reporting “partial data.”

State party officials stressed that the app’s problems had no effect on the vote count and that no cyberattack was involved.

Shadow is a tech company affiliated with Democratic non-profit Acronym, and has been paid by multiple Democratic candidates including former Vice President Joe Biden and former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg for text messaging services.

The app was due to be used by the Nevada Democratic Party for vote tabulation during the upcoming Nevada caucuses, but the party announced Tuesday that the app would no longer be used.

The company on Tuesday expressed “regret” over the issues that delayed reporting of the caucus results.

“We sincerely regret the delay in the reporting of the results of last night’s Iowa caucuses and the uncertainty it has caused to the candidates, their campaigns, and Democratic caucus-goers,” the company tweeted on Tuesday afternoon.