At the time of writing, many US publications were in various states of alarm or meltdown over controversies and delays in calculating the results of Iowa’s latest election. Iowa is not a US state I know terribly much about, and a quick Google search reduced it to “corn and state fairs”, and the “birthplace of sliced bread”. For the next few weeks, though, it is likely to be associated with tech failure and the start of what will probably feel like the longest election cycle in living memory. You see, this Iowa caucus is — as BBC News put it — “the first round in the contest to pick a Democratic candidate to face President Donald Trump”.
It is widely agreed that Trump will be the Republican candidate again, so people are keeping a closer eye on the Democratic primaries (though this isn’t one) where the potentials are duking it out for nominee status. Iowa has been first on the calendar since the 1970s and is considered a significant symbolic win, drumming up sentiment to propel campaigns forward — despite not having an excellent candidate prediction track record. It’s all a bit convoluted to this South African. So that’s the best I can make of an eyelid-twitch-inducing, complex US political system, but that’s beside the point.
The trouble started with significant delays in the release of the results. Then came the rumours that the results or the voting itself had been compromised, perhaps through some hack or digital interference. This has since been denied. An app had failed, suggested some. This too has been met with strong repudiations — at least by some. Still, the votes are being manually checked and even tallied because, as Iowa Democratic Party spokesperson Mandy McClure confirmed, inconsistencies have been found in three sets of results. She called it a “reporting issue”. Remember, this is not a general election, but a caucus — only open to party members in specific places at a time. So we’re not talking about millions of ballots here.
The parties and the press, however, can be forgiven for being greatly unsettled by even the suggestion of tech failure, or, perhaps worse, vulnerability. After all, the Democratic Party servers were — now infamously — hacked as part of a plot to interfere in the 2016 elections. And if the drama kicks off at this early stage, hold on to your hats for the next eight months. Or, as BBC North America reporter Anthony Zurcher put it: “[This Iowa case] will be a snafu that launches 1,000 conspiracy theories ...”
Remember when introducing technology to the voting process was purported to be a safeguard against meddling? This was back when we still, naively, constructed tech as neutral and, largely, infallible. Today, policymakers are gearing up to battle new media (now, “teenage media”, probably), misinformation and other dirty tricks, with legislators in the US sharpening their knives for a piece of legislation known largely as Section 230 — of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) of 1996 — in a bid to make platforms themselves liable and responsible for any wayward content published by platform users.
Election-season war rooms
Companies such as Google, Twitter and Facebook are working hard at being seen to come to the party — forgive the pun. As CNBC reported on Monday: “Twitter introduced a tool last week that allows users to more easily report false or misleading information about voting. Facebook’s election-season war rooms are up and running. And YouTube said on Monday that changes to its video recommendation system have led to a 70% decline in average watch time of misinformation and ‘borderline’ content.”
How big is the problem? By its own estimates, Facebook says it removed about 45,000 misleading posts during the 2018 midterms. There is a real threat there, no doubt, but also an introduction of a new bogeyman. You see, it is not enough to go after your opponents anymore. While we are peeping at the access logs in paranoia and slaying the code bugs, everyone has a convenient scapegoat for any failure: tech itself.
Senator Elizabeth Warren argues that the tech oligarchs have too much power and should be broken up. Bernie Sanders says the broadband providers need to be re-examined and regulated. Republicans argue that social media is biased against them (Facebook head honchos even met Trump to try to persuade him of their neutrality), and lefties make a compelling case that conservatives are using social media to weaponise fear for political gain.
It’s a mess, and despite being thousands of kilometres away it has global implications. Either way, it is beginning to feel like the US general election on November 3 is several lifetimes (and many melted icebergs) away. Strength to us, and to the US, and may we all don our sceptical hats while scrolling from here on out.
• Thompson Ferreira is a freelance journalist, impactAFRICA fellow and WanaData member.
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