saturday, february 22 , 2020. the washington post eZ re A
into groups to announce their
preference for one candidate or
another, and then reshuffle if
support for certain presidential
hopefuls does not meet a viability
threshold. A number of states,
from Maine to Minnesota,
switched to government-run pri-
maries.
The dependence on volunteers
in particular creates risks and
accountability gaps, according to
lawmakers and experts.
“The state party obviously
can’t afford to hire a large num-
ber of computer professionals to
do this,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren
(D-Calif.), who chairs the con-
gressional subcommittee that
oversees federal elections.
“They’re going to rely on volun-
teers, and that may or may not be
suitable.”
The reliance on volunteers is
perhaps most apparent in the
last-minute development of new
technology to ease the tabulation
and verification of results on cau-
cus day in Nevada, after the state
party ditched reporting tools
built by the same start-up, Shad-
ow Inc., used in Iowa’s first-in-
the-nation contest.
The new tool, which relies on
customized Google softwareloaded onto about 2,000 party-
purchased iPads, was devised by
Josh Hendler, according to p eople
familiar with the planning who
spoke on the condition of ano-
nymity to discuss sensitive mat-
ters.
Hendler, who has no formal
role with the Nevada Democrats
but previously served as director
of technology at the DNC, de-
clined through a spokeswoman
for the state party to comment.
He i s now chief technology officer
and head of product at Purpose, a
New York-based “social impact
agency.”
The software involves a 13-step
Google Forms configuration aid-
ing volunteers as they count
c aucus-goers, catalogue their
preferences and award delegates.
To log in, volunteer caucus lead-
ers will enter a precinct number
and a password. Every piece of
data they punch into the iPad will
also be written by hand on a
“caucus math poster” hung on the
wall at precincts.
While the data from the iPads
will feed back to the state party,
Saturday’s results will also be
called into a hotline staffed by a
professional call center. In addi-
tion, volunteers are asked to textin a photo of a “caucus reporting
sheet.” And preference cards com-
pleted by each caucus-goer will
serve as an underlying paper trail
if the results require thorough
verification.
The hotline number will not be
made available until Saturday, in
an effort to guard against its
online circulation, which oc-
curred in Iowa and gave rise to a
flood of prank calls.
“This is the most important
tool you have,” caucus leaders
were instructed during a training
webinar this week, in reference to
the hotline.
Where the calculator is most
critical is in combining data from
the state party’s four-day early-
voting period — introduced for
the first time this year — with
caucus-day counts, an intricate
process of matching ranked-
choice preferences completed
ahead of time with precincts
across the state where Democrats
will conduct live caucuses on Sat-
urday. Precinct leaders who
choose to forgo use of the tool, or
who are unable to operate it, will
have to rely on printouts of early-
vote preferences and amalgamate
those results by hand with the
numbers on caucus day.BY ISAAC STANLEY-BECKERLAS VEGAS — The appeal to
tech-savvy Democrats went out
the week after technology
crashed the Iowa caucuses — and
days before the presidential nom-
inating contest was set to touch
down in Nevada.
The pitch was simple: “Your
democracy needs you!”
That was the opening line of
the email from Raffi Krikorian,
the former chief technology offi-
cer at the Democratic National
Committee. He sent the missive,
obtained by The Washington
Post, on Feb. 12, as Democrats in
Iowa were still coming to grips
with their bungled caucuses,
thrown into disarray b y a glitch in
the software used to transmit
results.
The debacle became a case
study in how technology can mar
an election.
Krikorian, who has done stints
at Uber and Twitter, wanted to
make sure it did not happen again
Saturday, when Democrats in Ne-
vada convene at about 2 50 loca-
tions to weigh in on the nominat-
ing contest. “A group of us are
helping the Nevada Democratic
Party to try to bring technical
volunteers in to help with the
Nevada Caucuses,” he wrote.
He asked if people would be
willing to travel to the Silver
State, providing a Google sign-up
sheet.
The recruitment drive illus-
trates how Democratic-aligned
tech buffs are grappling with
their role following the Iowa
breakdown. It also reveals the
extent to which state parties re-
sponsible for running caucuses —
rather than election officials who
carry out the primaries — depend
on volunteers to execute the high-
stakes contests.
The task has become even
more challenging since the DNC
set transparency rules aimed at
restoring public trust following
allegations of bias that roiled the
2016 primaries. Those regula-
tions require the reporting of raw
support, in addition to the alloca-
tion of delegates, meaning volun-
teers are under heightened scru-
tiny as they calculate and record
an expanding web of numbers.
This cycle, only four states and
a handful of territories are hold-
ing caucuses, in which voters split
“This is a labor-intensive but
low-skill task,” s aid Greg Moody, a
professor of information systems
at t he University of Nevada in Las
Vegas.
While any digital tool has vul-
nerabilities, Moody added, the
setup seemed relatively secure
from what he had learned of it.
The greater risk, he warned, may
be human error, particularly be-
cause of the many different fig-
ures that volunteers are required
to enter — a result of complex
reporting requirements handed
down by the DNC.
Volunteers in Nevada were
able to test the iPads for the first
time Tuesday, and additional
training sessions occurred Thurs-
day and Friday. The campaigns
were also briefed on the tool
Tuesday, and multiple aides said
they were confident in the soft-
ware.
Nevada Democrats consulted
with DHS, as well as with “inde-
pendent security and technical
experts,” on the software, accord-
ing to a memo from Alana
Mounce, the executive director of
the state party.
Ensuring that the iPads remain
up and running is the key aim of
the volunteer tech support pre-
paring to descend on Nevada. By
Monday, nearly 50 people had
committed to providing tech sup-
port, virtually all of them coming
from out of state, according to a
planning document obtained by
The Post.
Among the groups activated
were DigiDems, which embeds
tech talent on Democratic cam-
paigns, and Higher Ground Labs,
an incubator for campaign-tech
start-ups.
The document included sug-
gestions for selling the opportu-
nity to people, including “sense of
mission (super hero vibes around
democracy, liberty, voting).”
Compensation was not one of
the selling points.
“Unfortunately, we cannot re-
imburse you for your flights,
a ccommodation, or food,” r ead an
email update sent from
“ [email protected]” on
Monday. “This is a big ask for
many people, and we are so grate-
ful to those with the time and
resources to be able to do this.”
Also on Monday, the DNC’s
technology team took the reins on
the volunteer recruitment, in asign that the national party is
girding itself for mishaps on Sat-
urday. T he party r equested access
to the Google Doc where planning
was unfolding. And the DNC’s
deputy chief technology officer,
Kat Atwater, was identified as the
“overall tech volunteer owner” i n
the document, which had set an
aim of finding 250 volunteers, to
match tech support one-to-one at
sites across the state.
It was unclear if that goal had
been met as of Friday, when party
officials did not respond to re-
quests for comment about the
precise size of the effort, or
whether the tech volunteers
would undergo training. Some
outside volunteers who had been
chasing possible recruits stepped
back as the party stepped in.
“If we got only 50 Te ch volun-
teers we would prioritize Nevada
precincts that needed the tech
support urgently,” t he document
read.
Xochitl Hinojosa, a spokes-
woman for the DNC, said the
national party was recruiting vol-
unteers “to help on all sorts of
fronts, including tech.”
The DNC has about three doz-
en staff on the ground in Nevada,
which marks an expansion of its
footprint since Iowa.
“We’ve had a tech team here,
we’ve had comms folks here, or-
ganizers,” Tom Perez, the chair-
man of the national party, said in
a brief interview, adding that the
party was “going to school on the
lessons of Iowa.”
“We’re working hard to make
sure we produce a caucus that is
as low-tech as humanly possible
while still maintaining efficien-
cy,” Perez said.
Molly Forgey, a spokeswoman
for the state party, said tech sup-
port at caucus sites will “help
troubleshoot in real time.”
To identify themselves, the vol-
unteer tech unit made T-shirts for
Saturday.
“A sk me questions about tech!”
reads the text on the blue gar-
ments.
With the n umber of volunteers
still in flux, it is not clear how
many caucus chairs will have that
opportunity.
isaac.stanley-
[email protected]tony romm and David Weigel
contributed to this report.Tech-savvy Democrats race to fill gaps in Nev. caucuses
Melina Mara/the Washington Post
People wait in line to submit ballots on Tuesday, the last day of early voting for the Nevada caucuses.
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