We're not talking web-scale here, either. There are 1,600 caucus sites in Iowa. My understanding is that only the organizers/officials even need this on their phones. So we're talking on the order of 10-20k users, max.
My intuition is that the bigger problem is with the caucus format itself, and especially the new rule changes. The app, with its strict data entry requirements, likely didn't cover a lot of corner cases and so people had to call in to ask what to do. There was one caucus on TV last night that had problems because a bunch of people left after first alignment and organizers didn't know how to tally their votes.
When some confusion -- any confusion -- happens, that doesn't fit into the app's forms, people are not going to trust it and will revert to calling the IDP/DNC offices to see how to proceed.
This makes more sense to me than actually the app melting down under load which was implied from some reporting.
Then if the Iowa DNC (or whoever) didn't staff up the phones to the usual levels as expecting most results to come through the app, you can kind of get to how something this ridiculous happened...
Either way it's a complete lack of pretty basic testing/training, whether it's with real life users or the scale of the app, or whatever it was, they seem like pretty preventable problems from the outside looking in.
chatmasta|6 years ago
My intuition is that the bigger problem is with the caucus format itself, and especially the new rule changes. The app, with its strict data entry requirements, likely didn't cover a lot of corner cases and so people had to call in to ask what to do. There was one caucus on TV last night that had problems because a bunch of people left after first alignment and organizers didn't know how to tally their votes.
When some confusion -- any confusion -- happens, that doesn't fit into the app's forms, people are not going to trust it and will revert to calling the IDP/DNC offices to see how to proceed.
tomlong|6 years ago
Then if the Iowa DNC (or whoever) didn't staff up the phones to the usual levels as expecting most results to come through the app, you can kind of get to how something this ridiculous happened...
Either way it's a complete lack of pretty basic testing/training, whether it's with real life users or the scale of the app, or whatever it was, they seem like pretty preventable problems from the outside looking in.
birdyrooster|6 years ago