Week ahead: Iowa to test out new caucus technology

The Iowa Republican and Democratic parties have beefed up their caucus reporting technology since the 2012 cycle, and it will be tested during Monday night’s first-in-the-nation presidential contest.

Microsoft has partnered with the two parties to provide a secure app that precinct leaders can use to report their results back to their respective state party headquarters.

The app, backed up by Microsoft’s cloud technology, is meant to cut back on the human error of past systems and promises to deliver quicker results to the public and the press. The old system relied on precincts reporting results through touch-tone keypads, which could be thrown off by the extra push of a button.

{mosads}The apps, one for Democrats and one for Republicans, require authentication for anyone reporting results, and also require people to double check the numbers before they are sent in. Officials say the system also has ways to flag anomalies — for example, if a small precinct reports larger-than-possible totals.

Officials in the state say the new partnership with Microsoft is not a direct reaction to the mix-up on the Republican side in 2012, when Mitt Romney appeared to be the winner for weeks before the final vote total showed Rick Santorum with a slight lead. But it will help with some of those errors.

“We want to make sure we are doing everything to avoid any of the mistakes that were made previously. And by partnering with Microsoft, we feel that we have done that,” said Cody Hoefert, co-chairman of the Iowa GOP Party.

He said the party has already had two dry runs without incident. The apparent winner will be known on caucus night with the help of the app, and the Republican Party is hoping to get the final vote total certified within 48 hours.

On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders’s campaign raised recent suspicion of Microsoft’s involvement in the process, but Microsoft and both parties have dismissed the concerns. The Sanders campaign has created its own backup tracking tool.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign has similar backups in place.

In Washington, the Communications and Technology Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing Tuesday on FirstNet, the embattled broadband network for public safety users. Witnesses include FirstNet CEO Michael Poth and David Furth, deputy chief of the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau.

“We continue to monitor FirstNet’s progress toward deploying this nationwide public safety network,” said subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) in a statement. “Despite a tough start, FirstNet has demonstrated it is moving forward and getting closer to delivering for our nation’s first responders.”

The committee’s last oversight hearing on the network came in June. It came as the organization looked to turn itself around following allegations of mismanagement, including in a report from the Department of Commerce’s inspector general.

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This story was updated at 10:31 a.m.