Microsoft said its technology that helped calculate the winner of Monday’s Iowa caucus worked without error, but some Donald Trump supporters beg to differ.
The Redmond tech giant implemented a mobile, responsive, cloud-based system that counted votes instead of a dial-in service. Each party used a separate application and both trained with Microsoft to test the app before Monday.
Mashable reported Monday evening that the website tracking Republican caucus results in Iowa that ran on Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform experienced intermittent outages. However, there was no evidence that the apps malfunctioned.
Here’s a statement from a Microsoft spokesperson:
“The mobile apps for both parties have been working without issue. National interest in the Iowa Caucuses has overwhelmed the Democratic and Republican Party Iowa Caucus websites, and we’re working to resolve.”
Recode noted that Trump supporters created the #MicrosoftRubioFraud on Twitter after Marco Rubio appeared to win the caucus (Ted Cruz actually won, and Trump finished second). They claimed that there was a conspiracy with Microsoft’s technology given that the company is the second-largest corporate donor to Rubio, who finished third.
Microsoft is counting the votes & the candidates that they fund conveniently & unexpectadly won #MicrosoftRubioFraud pic.twitter.com/A3V78FPpCN
— Partisangirl ?? (@Partisangirl) February 2, 2016
Best part of #MicrosoftRubioFraud is the idea that Marco Rubio allegedly stole a slightly-higher-position in third place. Sure, makes sense.
— Philip Bump (@pbump) February 2, 2016
Last week, Bernie Sanders voiced concern with Microsoft’s app, saying that he was suspicious of a large corporation’s intentions in helping total the vote.
