[pkilgore]

I mean, Snapchat could handle the scale of this without a sweat, but you tell 1600 retirees to download it and post a picture (with no training) and provide them a support telephone number, I suspect you'll end up with less than 100 pictures and more than a thousand phone calls.

[gbear605]

The question is whether the problem is a question of misunderstood usage (by the users) or an inability for the backend to handle the load. If it was the former, that’s at least understandable, for the reasons you said, though they still should have practiced it. If it’s the latter, that’s pretty inexcusable, given that they knew precisely the amount of load and that it’s a fairly low amount. I’m pretty sure a naive implementation of any backend for this could handle the load (1600 precincts each reporting a picture over the course of an hour), unless there’s some requirement of this that I’m missing.

Either way, this is a pretty good indictment of this entire idea. Stick with what worked for hundreds of years, don’t try “solutions” to non-problems.

[gbrown]

> Stick with what worked for hundreds of years,

In Iowa specifically, I’d disagree - primaries are a more robust and inclusive system than caucuses.

[appleiigs]

A simple CRUD website wouldn’t require downloading. Updates/fixes would happen at each refresh. Even seniors know how to use a website these days.

[hadrien01]

For results like that you could even use a simple Google Forms and verify the paper trail afterwards

[inkeddeveloper]

But a simple CRUD website wouldn't reasonably cost $60k and the company needed to justify to pricetag. Not saying there is a conspiracy but there is big money in politics and they wanted a piece of it.