They knew about it when a failed a test with a couple hundred users.
Apparently, the administration didn't want to finalize any of the decisions for this monstrosity prior to the 2012 election out of fear that the unsavory details would leak out to the public.
” — no amount of testing within reasonable time limits can adequately replicate a live environment of this nature.”
This is an out-and-out lie.
However, what if they were Republican moles - you know, like the Democratic moles who sabotaged Romney’s data systems (especially around Election Day). In that case, I salute them.