Microsoft hears complaints about Iowa results websites

The official webpages for the public to check the results of the Iowa caucuses became inaccessible at some points Monday night amid heavy interest.  

The page listing the Republican results had the most trouble, including during the 10 p.m. EST hour — a time when many networks projected Ted Cruz to be the winner. Both the Democratic and Republican results pages were working fine Tuesday morning. 

{mosads}The websites were run by Microsoft and its partner, Interknowlogy, which also provided an app for precinct officials to report their caucus results to party headquarters. 

The Iowa Republican Party said the reporting app itself had no problems in relaying the vote counts to headquarters. On the internal side, the party said, the “app ran flawlessly.”

“The reporting apps worked without issue, allowing both the Iowa Republicans and Democrats to report results quickly, accurately, and securely,” Microsoft said in a statement that also acknowledged the spotty performance of the results page.

The Democratic race resulted in a near tie. With all 1,683 precincts reporting, Hillary Clinton held a narrow 0.2 percent lead over Bernie Sanders. Neither campaign, nor the Iowa Democratic Party, responded when asked if they had any criticism of the reporting technology. 

It will take time for both parties to actually certify the results. 

The spotty public GOP results page brought in occasional social media criticism Monday night. And a number of sites dedicated to testing whether a webpage is down for all users confirmed that the problem was widespread.

The public, however, had many other options to find results. Nearly every major news outlet and cable network had their own results pages. And a number of social media and tech companies listed the results as well.

This report was updated at 11:53 a.m.