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The Shadow Inc. app that failed in Iowa last night

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Re: The Shadow Inc. app that failed in Iowa last night

#41

Post by jariel »

pmoriarty wrote: post #4

How long will it take our society to realize that democracy is threatened when machines are involved in voting or vote counting? Going back to voting exclusively by ink on paper and hand counting is imperative.

Paper ballots with scanned results in the booth. No scan means redo your vote. That way you have a track record + instant results.

Folks can take home the stub to ensure non-repudiation etc..

They can look up the serial number on the stub they take home to see for sure it was recorded.

FYI we should also have basic ID requirements for voting. The arguments against it are kind of ridiculous, and federal or state ID should be free.

There should be no 'voter registration' required either: the state knows your address and that's that.

For lighter elections like city alderman, you can use your ID + passcode to SMS or email your vote.

Maybe make a law requiring that any tech used for legal voting has to get the thumbs up from the NSA or some super amazing agency that is also secular in nature. None of this 'quickie app for voting' rubbish.

At this point, I hate politics so much, I think every nation needs a 'caretaker' Pres/PM from the bureaucracy - someone who can clean out the cobwebs, get rid of a bunch of old laws, clean up the tax code, take on the public unions (I mean reform not destroy, I mean teachers probably need higher salaries) and basically do a big, operational house cleaning that has nothing to do with politics.

Re: The Shadow Inc. app that failed in Iowa last night

#44

Post by nooron »

I started a company that was asked to write a proposal to make what became the app that failed last night. I declined because it was outside of our core skillset. You can read my prior comments or look at my profile to validate this. If you want my perspective as someone who started a Democratic software company, you should keep reading.

This app emerged from a mandate to make the caucus more accessible and transparent. It was well-intentioned but underfunded and lacked comprehensive organizational buy-in. Introducing tech can help but you have to spend tons of money to make it reliable and usable, then you have to spend more to train everyone in using it. This is a problem organizations of all sizes and shapes face when making massive IT changes.

Shadow is a firm that makes custom software for Democrats and progressives. It has an unnecessarily sinister name. There are not a lot of companies that make software for Democrats because it’s an awful job. You make very little money. Everyone hates you when things go wrong, which they will, because the product testing cycle and margins are nonexistent. Then everyone will assume things went wrong because you are some combination– you choose– of secretly evil, secretly working for Bernie, secretly working for The Establishment/Hillary (per someone's unpersuasive Imgur post below), or secretly working for Buttigieg.

Others have noted that Shadow also made software for the Buttigieg campaign. If you take my claims above as true, this should be unsurprising to you: a hard market where everyone hates you and no one has money to pay you is not attractive to enterprising software engineers, so there are few firms available to choose.

Re: The Shadow Inc. app that failed in Iowa last night

#45

Post by inkeddeveloper »

skrowl wrote: post #3

I'm picturing the Dos Equis meme saying "I don't always test, but when I do, I test in production. Stay on call, my friends." At least now I don't feel bad about when I test in production. (just kidding, I didn't feel bad before).

At least you're honest.

Re: The Shadow Inc. app that failed in Iowa last night

#46

Post by jdkee »

faizshah wrote: post #28
tmpz22 wrote: post #14

This should really be getting more attention, here is an alternative breakdown: https://imgur.com/gallery/ycOC0HX . The jest of it is one of the most important institutions in the United States (the Democratic National Committee) uses a highly nepotistic and incompetent system for managing IT which leads to colossal failures in marketing, canvassing, and security. Not to mention massive PII violations as millions of…

So if we are interested in helping the DNC improve their software what do you think we should do? Is there a route for something like 18F for the DNC?

Maybe open-source the apps they propose to use?

Re: The Shadow Inc. app that failed in Iowa last night

#47

Post by tptacek »

3fe9a03ccd14ca5 wrote: post #26
tptacek wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DNC doesn't run the Iowa Caucuses.

What’s the relationship between the Iowa DNC and the “main” DNC?

There's no such thing as an "Iowa DNC". You presumably mean the IDP, the Iowa Democratic Party. They're separate organizations.

The DNC and the state parties are often at odds with each other. There's a good series of "Reply All" episodes about this, focusing on the Alabama Democratic Party.

Re: The Shadow Inc. app that failed in Iowa last night

#48

Post by tptacek »

corporate_shi11 wrote: post #27
tptacek wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DNC doesn't run the Iowa Caucuses.

"HuffPost, citing multiple Democratic sources and campaign finance records, reported amid the caucus chaos late Monday that Shadow Inc. was behind the app. ACRONYM, a Democrat-linked technology and campaign consulting nonprofit group, owns Shadow Inc." "Shadow Inc.’s website has scant information about the firm and its employees. But a review of social media accounts shows that three of the Washington, D.C.-based fir…

This is a lot of stuff that has nothing to do with my comment or with the DNC, the subject of the parent comment, which, again, does not run the Iowa Caucuses.

Re: The Shadow Inc. app that failed in Iowa last night

#49

Post by there_the_and »

sjm-lbm wrote: post #36
tmpz22 wrote: post #14

This should really be getting more attention, here is an alternative breakdown: https://imgur.com/gallery/ycOC0HX . The jest of it is one of the most important institutions in the United States (the Democratic National Committee) uses a highly nepotistic and incompetent system for managing IT which leads to colossal failures in marketing, canvassing, and security. Not to mention massive PII violations as millions of…

This seems overly paranoid to me - wouldn't we want people with experience in the civics tech space to be leaders at a company working in the civics tech space? Besides, wouldn't most of the good Bernie tech people... go back to work for Bernie? There's a reason why the Hillary people need new jobs.

> This seems overly paranoid to me

This is not even close to paranoid. Conflicts of interest are an important issue for nonprofits because it can cause them to lose tax exempt status, and the IRS makes a whole todo about it, and therefore so do competent boards. Trying to brush this under the rug because of politics is disgusting and would not be tolerated at ethical and competent organizations.

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