A new video released a few hours ago by USAToday goes in-depth with Microsoft’s campaign reporting apps and shows the ins-and-outs of the new digital reporting system, along with the security verification measures in place to ensure that only authorized Iowans are inputting caucus results.
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The first round of US Presidential voting is shaping to be a close run thing, less than a day out from the Iowa Caucus.
“This will be the first time in Iowa Caucuses history that reporting will be done accurately and efficiently in real time”, Huckaby told CRN.
Microsoft built apps for each political party in Iowa for all mobile and PC platforms, with the results to be securely stored and managed in Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform, he said.
Smith said later that she could call a phone number to report the results to the Democratic Party of Iowa.
While both parties have embraced the tech, not all of their candidates have.
“Microsoft and their App partner, InterKnowlogy, are global leaders in the technology industry, and we completely trust the integrity of their staff and the app”, Iowa Democratic Party communications director Sam Lau said in a statement. The apps, which are being given to both parties for free, replace a touch tone keypad-based system that was used in 2008 and 2012, and are meant to help improve the overall accuracy of the reporting process.
This time around, “there is no possible technical way that more than the votes that are allocated can be placed”.
Other aides to Sanders noted that Microsoft employees have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Clinton campaign, according to MSNBC.
“You’d have to ask yourself why they’d want to give something like that away for free”, he’s quoted as saying in The Hill. More details about tonight’s Iowa caucus voting process can be found here, while Microsoft’s new reporting technology press release can be found here.
Despite assurances that everyone is confident in the new system, The Hill reports that both the Sanders and Clinton campaigns have installed their own backup reporting systems.
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Personally, I’m not too anxious about the robust abilities of the new app in performing this critical task.
