Iowa held hostage—day four.
Let my people go!
1. Vast majority of polls, if not all, had Bernie as the leader going into the Iowa Caucus, Buttigieg in second, and Biden 3rd or 4th although there were concerns Biden was falling.
2. The “gold standard” final Iowa poll that CNN was to have a hour long program on was scrapped due to a complaint from Buttigieg.
3. On the advice of the DNC, just 2 months prior to the caucus, the Iowa Dem Party decided to not use the traditional call in vote reporting method and instead use an app that was still in the process of being put together.
4. The consensus of experts in this field conclude that using mobile, internet technologies for vote reporting is a bad idea period, not even considering the fact that it was a new app that was just put together. You don’t have to be an expert, it’s common sense.
5. There has been no explanation given as to how and why the highly questionable decision to use the app was made other than the generic “to make the vote reporting easier.”
6. The creator of the app has received payments from both Buttigieg and Biden in the recent past for “other” services purportedly not related to the app.
7. On the night of the Iowa caucus, with no official results in, Pete declared victory and Biden declared he’d be leaving Iowa with his share of delegates when the storyline should have likely been “Bernie wins, Biden fails to get in top 3.”. Bernie’s internal numbers showed Bernie in the lead.
8. The first results were released at 5:00 ET the day after the Iowa Caucus, with just 62% reporting, Buttigieg had a 2% lead over Bernie Sanders. No explanation given why they decided to release this particular data. No decent explanation given why only 62% of the results could be released 24 hours after the caucus when it usually only takes an hour or so.
9. It is now 40 hours since the Iowa Caucus started, and we only have 71% reporting and Buttigieg has less than a 2% lead. We are now nearing two full days of Buttigieg claiming victory with incomplete results that are contrary to Bernie’s numbers showing him winning and no explanation given as to why they decided to release these results in this manner in such a close race.
10. If Bernie does in fact come out the winner in Iowa, it is clear the way Dems handled this helped Biden and Buttigieg and hurt Sanders. Even if the app debacle was simply a debacle and not a nefarious plan, the Dem Party still had it in their control to release only the full results when they knew it was a close race for first instead of allowing Buttigieg to claim victory using incomplete results for 2+ days.
11. When you consider all of the above in light of what happened during the 2016 primary, when the Dem Party clearly favored Clinton over Bernie, one must conclude it’s more likely than not this was all a planned stunt to hurt Bernie and not simply an accident.
Supports:
quote:
The vote reporting app “was quickly put together in just the past two months, said the people, some of whom asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak publicly. And the party decided to use the app only after another proposal for reporting votes — which entailed having caucus participants call in their votes over the phone — was abandoned, on the advice of Democratic National Committee officials, according to David Jefferson, a board member of Verified Voting, a nonpartisan election integrity organization.
The app used by the Iowa Democratic Party was built by Shadow Inc., a for-profit technology company...Shadow’s involvement was kept a secret by Democratic officials through the caucuses.
“The consensus of all experts who have been thinking about this is unequivocal,” Mr. Blaze added. “Internet and mobile voting should not be used at this time in civil elections.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/02/03/us/politics/iowa-caucus-app.amp.html
quote:
Buttigieg’s campaign paid Shadow Inc., the company behind the Iowa Caucus app, $42,500 in July for text messaging software, campaign finance records show. The software was not related to that developed for the Iowa Caucus.
Other candidates and Democratic parties, including Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and the Texas Democratic Party have also contracted with Shadow Inc. in the past for services similar to those purchased by the Buttigieg campaign, federal campaign finance data shows.
https://apnews.com/afs:Content:8464590602