Nevada caucus will use new ‘iPad tool’ they swear isn’t an app

Oh lordy, here we go again.

The Nevada State Democratic Party is planning to use a new app for the state’s caucus on Saturday, Feb. 22, just days after it abandoned the app that threw the Iowa caucus into chaos. 

Adding to the fun: Nevada Dems are refusing to call it an app. 

Per the Nevada Independent, the “new caucus tool that will be preloaded onto iPads” was introduced to volunteers at a training session on Saturday. 

According to a video used in the training session that the Independent viewed, the instructor “tells volunteers that the new mechanism ‘is not an app’ but should be thought of as ‘a tool.'”

As for what the “tool” does? 

“[it will] flow your precinct early vote data, so that you can have the information for your precinct caucus, so that when you do your viability calculations, you’re able to get the number of people who voted early and then when you see the results of your first alignment, you’re able to key in that early vote information so that you have every piece of information you need to run your precinct caucus.”

CBS News reports that the iPads that will be handed out will be disconnected from the internet, which is good for security purposes. It doesn’t seem like the iPads will be used to directly report live results back to the party. (Though as you’ll read below, it’s still not clear.) But, still, a tool preloaded on an iPad that can make calculations based on data input?

Guys, that’s a goddamn app. 

We’ve reached out to the Nevada Democratic Party with questions pertaining to this app iPad “tool” and its background. 

This all wouldn’t seem so bad if it weren’t for the fact that the app the company Shadow, Inc., which is responsible for Iowa’s hackable tire fire of an app, created one hell of a janky app for Nevada that prompted the state party to claim it would not use it for the caucus. 

Nevada claimed it was looking into some of the backup plans it had already created and was “currently evaluating the best path forward.” That was on Tuesday. Less than a week later, that best path forward seems to be… another app. 

Making matters worse, it seems there wasn’t much actual training or background about the app given to volunteers at Saturday’s meeting. And this is with the Nevada caucus literally two weeks away. 

When one volunteer asked a staffer at the session about transmitting the data to another location, according to the Independent, the staffer said, “Those are all excellent questions, and we’re still working out some of the details around those so I’ll make sure that everyone has more information as we’re able to share it.”

Another volunteer told the outlet, “There was no hands on. We were not given the program to work with or practice with. All we have were a few slides to look at while they told us that they’re planning to develop it further.”

Oh, and as if this isn’t troubling enough, CBS News notes that the state party was short on volunteers and that “Some volunteers are bracing to potentially host two caucuses at once at their sites if the volunteer shortfall is not filled.”

All in all, not great!

Whatever you want to call it — a “tool,” an “app,” a “tech-based-non-application-abacus” — it sure feels like we’re headed for a repeat of the Iowa debacle unless things come together really quick.