After Iowa debacle, Nevada scraps tech plan for its caucuses

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Chaos of Iowa caucuses sparks concerns about other states using mobile app technology

2020 hopefuls look to hit the ground running in the Granite State; Peter Doocy reports from Concord, New Hampshire.

Nevada Democrats are scrapping plans to use apps at their caucuses in three weeks. They had planned to use tech similar to the one used during Monday's Iowa caucuses that resulted in the troubles that delayed the reporting of results Monday night, putting the outcome of the nation's first nominating contest in doubt.

Nevada State Democratic Party chair William McCurdy II issued a statement Tuesday, saying the party “can confidently say that what happened in the Iowa caucus last night will not happen in Nevada.”

“We will not be employing the same app or vendor used in the Iowa caucus," McCurdy said. "We had already developed a series of backups and redundant reporting systems and are currently evaluating the best path forward."

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Nevada Democrats had planned to use two apps in their Feb. 22 caucuses: one to tabulate results, as Iowa did, and a second app preloaded onto tablets for voters to use at caucus sites to cast online votes during four days of early voting.

The party's executive director Alana Mounce told reporters that the party would not use apps developed by Shadow Inc., which was behind the technology used in Iowa. It has not ruled out using another app to tabulate results, Mounce said.

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Officials in South Carolina and New Hampshire have expressed confidence in their elections systems. The chaos in Iowa has put its coveted status as the start of the presidential nominating calendar under scrutiny.

An official with one Democratic presidential campaign in Nevada who was not authorized to speak publicly said because of the similarity to the Iowa Democratic Party’s plans, there was mounting concern about Nevada’s ability to pull off a smooth process and Nevada Democrats needed to offer more information to reassure the campaigns.

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Unlike in Iowa, where party officials said they were not allowing precinct chairs to download the new mobile app until just before the caucuses, Nevada precinct chairs had been practicing with the app for about a month, local Democrats said.

Fox News' Brooke Singman contributed to this report.