'BradCast' 2/4/202 (Iowa's Dem Caucus Meltdown; Guest: John Nichols of The Nation)
b"On today's 'BradCast': What the hell happened in the meltdown at the Democratic Iowa Caucuses on Monday night?\\xa0 The caucuses worked as intended, but the Iowa Democratic Party's ill-advised decision to use a smartphone app to send local, transparent, public caucus site results to the state party headquarters failed miserably, generation confusion, delay, and conspiracy theories. As we have warned for more than 15 years, it is always a terrible idea to use new, untested, secretly-developed, nontransparent, unnecessary computer technology for mission critical, must-not-fail elections. We explain what happened \\u2013the complex caucus process, how the app was supposed to work, and the reasons and the history behind the decision to use the app, despite numerous warnings from cybersecurity professionals against it. Bottom line: even if technology like this works perfectly (it never does), the public cannot KNOW that it did, and confidence in democracy itself is deeply endangered. JOHN NICHOLS of The Nation, who was in Iowa, joins us for analysis and rants on all of the above, and what it all means now and in the future, while all of this ultimately gets sorted out. Also today: local\\xa0 news outlets are carrying our reporting on Los Angeles County's new, untested, 100% unverifiable, expensive touchscreen voting system, set for first-time use in the mission-critical Super Tuesday primary on March 3rd.\\xa0\\xa0 Plus Desi Doyen has our latest 'Green News Report'..."