
Despite a new, wider rollout of a mobile app to transmit caucus results, local party officials in Iowa say the mobile app was not part of any caucus chair training.
Linda Nelson, a Democratic caucus chair in Pottawattamie County, tells CNN that precinct chairs did not receive training because the app wasn’t ready.
Zach Simons, the party chair in Wapello county, told The New York Times: “The app wasn’t included in the chair training that everyone was required to take.”
In Des Moines, Polk County Democratic Chairman Sean Bagniewski told CNN that app problems actually surfaced last week during testing. When some precinct chairs reported trouble last Thursday, Bagniewski told those who couldn’t get the app to work to call in their results to the Iowa Democratic Party as they had in previous years.
“When you have an app that you’re sending out to 1,700 people and many of them might be newer to apps and that kind of stuff, it might have been worth doing a couple months’ worth of testing,” Bagniewski told The New York Times.
However, last week, a state party official told CNN's Dianne Gallagher: "The IDP has been training caucus leaders on heightened security measures and is holding regular app trainings with caucus leaders in the weeks leading up to caucus night."
CNN has reached out to the Iowa Democratic Party for a response on the precinct chairs' concerns today and has not received a response.