Iowa caucus debacle is one of the most stunning tech failures ever

Iowa officials counting the results coming in Monday from the caucusing app reported irregularities that required them to switch from the app to counting votes manually. Party officials said the "underlying data" put into the app was fine, but it is unclear as of yet how they know this or even what they consider "underlying data."

The Iowa Democrats were using an application made by a partisan progressive start-up named Shadow Inc., managed by a nonprofit investment company called Acronym. In a statement, Acronym distanced itself from Shadow.

They had an app that they knew was problematic. They used it anyway without properly testing their back-up plans, each stage of which have proved to take longer than usual.