Bernie Sanders Suspicious Of Microsoft Azure Vote-Counting App
Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders shuns Microsoft’s Iowa caucus vote tracker because of Microsoft’s 2008 Clinton donations
Bernie Sanders, the Democratic presidential candidate who’ll be going head to head with Hillary Clinton when next month’s US presidential primaries start, has snubbed Microsoft’ s Azure-based technology that tracks and logs votes.
Rather than using Microsoft’s tool at the upcoming Iowa caucus, Sanders and his team will reportedly use an open source, custom built measurement app.
Clinton
One reason for this switch could be that Microsoft donated large amounts of cash to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.
Bernie Sanders’ Iowa campaign manager Pete D’Alessandro told MSNBC: “You’d have to ask yourself why they’d want to give something like that away for free.”
This year is the first where Microsoft has said it would partner with both Republican and Democratic caucuses in Iowa.
“Every four years, Iowa commands the national spotlight.
“At Microsoft, we understand that technology can empower people and organizations to discover creative ways to address enduring problems and opportunities. That is why we are honored to support the 2016 Iowa caucus via a new, mobile-enabled, cloud-based platform that will facilitate accuracy and efficiency of the reporting process,” Microsoft said last year.
But D’Alessandro said that their own app is more trustworthy.
“It’s just a way that our folks can have an app that we trust to get the numbers to us in a timely fashion,” D’Alessandro said. “I’m always going to be more for sure on the stuff that my people had control over the entire time… If there are any problems, we can spot them right away.”
But Microsoft reiterated its impartiality. In a statement to MSNBS, Redmond said: “Microsoft is providing technology and services solely to administer and facilitate a neutral, accurate, efficient reporting system for the caucuses.
”We are proud to partner with the Iowa Democratic and Republican parties to ensure accurate results on caucus night.”
