Microsoft hears complaints about Iowa results web sites

The official webpages for the public to check the results of the Iowa caucuses became inaccessible at some points on Feb 1 amid heavy interest. The page listing the Republican results had the most trouble, including during the 10 pm EST hour — a time when many networks projected Sen Ted Cruz (R-TX) to be the winner. Both the Democratic and Republican results pages were working fine the morning of Feb 2.

The websites were run by Microsoft and its partner, Interknowlogy, which also provided an app for precinct officials to report their caucus results to party headquarters. The Iowa Republican Party said the reporting app itself had no problems in relaying the vote counts to headquarters. On the internal side, the party said, the “app ran flawlessly.” The spotty public GOP results page brought in occasional social media criticism the night of Feb 1. And a number of sites dedicated to testing whether a webpage is down for all users confirmed that the problem was widespread. The public, however, had many other options to find results. Nearly every major news outlet and cable network had their own results pages. And a number of social media and tech companies listed the results as well.