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Bad app was just a link in Iowa's Chain of Failure
糟糕的软件不过是爱荷华州一系列失败中的一环
By Reid J. Epstein, Sydney Ember, Trip Gabriel and Mike Baker
文/里德·J.爱泼斯坦，悉尼·恩伯，特里普·加布里尔，迈克·贝克尔
The first signs of trouble came early.
麻烦的第一轮征兆很早就出现了。
As the smartphone app for reporting the results of the Iowa Democratic caucuses began failing last Monday night,
上周一晚，用于报告爱荷华州民主党总统初选结果的手机软件出现故障后，
party officials instructed precinct leaders to move to Plan B:
该党官员便指示选区带头人启动备选方案：
calling the results into caucus headquarters,
将初选结果收入选举总部，
where dozens of volunteers would enter the figures into a secure system.
那里的数十名志愿者可将数据存入一个安全的系统。
But when many of those volunteers tried to log on to their computers, they made an unsettling discovery.
然而，就在多名志愿者尝试登陆他们的电脑时，一个令人不安的画面映入了他们的眼帘：
They needed smartphones to retrieve a code,
需要智能手机获取验证码。
but they had been told not to bring their phones into the “boiler room” in Des Moines.
问题是，他们已经被告知不能将手机带入得梅因的“锅炉房”（即核心办公室）。
As a torrent of results were phoned in from school gymnasiums,
投票结果从学校体育馆，工会大堂等各类聚集场所——
union halls and the myriad other gathering places that made the Iowa caucuses a world-famous model of democracy,
正是这些场所使得爱荷华州成为了举世闻名的民主典范——铺天盖地而来，
it soon became clear that the whole process was melting down.
很快，事实便已浮出水面：爱德华州这次的选举程序整个崩溃了。
Volunteers resorted to passing around a spare iPad to log into the system.
志愿者们只能靠传用一台备用iPad登陆系统。
Melissa Watson, the state party’s chief financial officer, who was in charge of the boiler room,
民主党官员后来承认，负责该锅炉房的民主党CFO梅丽莎·沃森
did not know how to operate a Google spreadsheet application used to input data, Democratic officials later acknowledged.
甚至都不懂如何操作此次被用来输入数据的谷歌表格软件。
Others, desperate to verify results, began telling some precinct leaders to email photographs of their worksheets —
其他人则已迫不及待地想要核实投票结果，他们告诉部分选区带头人，可将他们的表格——也即用以统计投票结果的那张纸——拍照，
the paper forms used to tally results — to a dedicated email address.
并以邮件的方式发送到一个专用的接收地址。
But for hours, no one monitored the inbox.
然而，几个小时的时间里没有一个人留意那个收件箱。
When it was finally opened Tuesday morning,
周二早晨他们终于打开那个收件箱时，
there were 700 unread emails waiting, with photos that had been sent sideways;
里面已经收到了700封未读邮件，附带着一张又一张横屏照片；
volunteers had to crane their necks to decipher the handwritten forms.
为了破译那些手写的表格，志愿者们不得不把脖子伸得老长。
An hour after the caucuses began, the Iowa Democratic Party chairman, Troy Price,
投票进行一个小时后，该州民主党主席特洛伊·普莱斯
huddled in another room with other officials,
和其他官员挤进了另一个房间，
none of them with a clear strategy to manage the unfolding chaos
却没有一个人能提出一个明确的方案，能收拾当前的混乱局面，
or answers to share with increasingly exasperated presidential campaigns.
也没有一个人能提出可供日益恼火的总统大选借鉴的答案。
A conference call with the campaigns ended with Mr. Price hanging up on them,
几十年来，爱荷华州上报的恐怕一直都是错误的投票结果，在这样的一片指责声中，
amid accusations that caucus results in Iowa may have been incorrectly reported for decades.
与竞选团队的电话会议以普莱斯的主动挂断草草收场。
As disastrous as the 2020 Iowa caucuses have appeared to the public,
对知情人士的数十次采访显示，尽管在民众看来，
the failure runs deeper and wider than has previously been known,
2020年爱荷华州的初选经历已经颇为惨痛，
according to dozens of interviews with those involved.
然而，此次失败的影响比大家先前所了解的还要深远。
It was a total system breakdown that casts doubt
此次失败堪称一次彻头彻尾的系统崩溃，不禁让人怀疑，
on how a critical contest on the American political calendar has been managed for years.
多年来，美国政治舞台上这场至关重要的较量究竟是如何开展的。
Until now, the main public villain in the Iowa caucus fiasco has been the reporting app,
截至目前，爱荷华州这场初选惨剧的罪魁祸首一直是那个报告投票结果的软件，
created by a company called Shadow Inc.,
开发该软件的公司名为“影子股份有限公司”（Shadow Inc.）,
along with a “coding issue” in a back-end results reporting system that state party officials blamed for the chaos.
以及被州民主党官员指责造成了此次混乱的后端结果报告系统的“编码问题”。
But the crackup resulted from cascading failures going back months.
然而，此次系统的崩溃是几个月的连锁故障引发的结果。
译文由可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载。
