An Iowa precinct secretary who had been waiting on the hotline the state's Democratic party had set up as a backup to give results was hung up on because he was too busy talking to CNN about the night's disarray.
Iowa's results are a mess since the app the Democratic Pary was planning on using to report the results of its precincts is not working, forcing them to use the ill-prepared backup means of reporting.
Shawn Sebastian, the secretary for Story Count Precinct 1-1, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer how the app was not working and he had been waiting to give the results for an hour.
"The app, by all accounts, just like doesn’t work so we’ve been recommended to call into the hotline and the hotline has not been responsive," Sebastian explained.
"And — have you gotten any explanation? Sean, have you gotten any explanation at all as to what’s going on?" Blitzer asked.
"No, I have not, no. I’m just waiting on hold. And doing my best to report the results from my precinct," Sebastian said.
As Sebastian was talking to Blitzer, he was taken off hold and a woman's voice can be heard trying to reach Sebastian. Since he did not respond to her in time, she hung up.
"This is a real coincidence, Wolf, I just got off hold, just now so I’ve got to get off the phone to report the results," Sebastian said. "Hi, hello? They hung up on me. They hung up on me. Okay, I’ve got to get back in line on hold. They just hung up."
The Iowa Democratic Party said the issue is with the app's ability to report and that there is no evidence of a hack.
New Iowa Democratic Party statement:
— Domenico Montanaro (@DomenicoNPR) February 4, 2020
"This is simply a reporting issue, the app did not go down and this is not a hack or an intrusion." pic.twitter.com/XCSGDAeeFx
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