Iowa Breakdown Reveals Broken Election Technology Ecosystem
- Cyclical nature and small budgets limit interest from big tech
- American elections marred by a string of technology failures
The app used for the Iowa Caucus.
Photographer: John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
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The chaos at the Iowa caucus has been blamed on a small startup called Shadow Inc., but what happened this week is also emblematic of wider problems plaguing the world of election technology.
It’s hard to get sophisticated technology companies to build such technology because most buyers have small budgets, and disappear after Election Day. In a four-year presidential election cycle, one campaign’s killer app is woefully obsolete by the next. So political parties and campaigns often create the technology themselves or hire small firms to do it for them.