THE SHADOW app that is under fire for botching last night's caucus results was created by tech-arm veterans of highly successful Hillary Clinton and Obama runs.

Democratic digital nonprofit Shadow took in an estimated $120,000 to build and implement the faulty campaign infrastructure app.

9 Staffers from Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential run helped develop an app that floundered during the Iowa caucus. Credit: AP:Associated Press

9 Staffers for former President Barack Obama helped develop an app that failed during the 2020 Iowa caucus. Credit: Getty Images - Getty

9 Bernie supporters settle in for the night Credit: AP:Associated Press

9 Lenora and Norman Iverson, of Des Moines, Iowa, fill out their Presidential Preference Cards during a Democratic party caucus at Hoover High School Credit: AP:Associated Press

The purpose of the app was for caucus site leaders to upload the results at their locales and quickly report the results and simplify Iowa's unusual voting system.

However, this backfired epically on Monday when numerous Democrats in Iowa reported major problems in attempting to download the application and upload results, with many resorting to calling the results into state party headquarters in Des Moines.

The Huff Post reported that Instead of streamlining the process, the crashes and inconsistencies in results caused overwhelmed and less-prepared officials to resort to doing things the old fashioned way through photos and a paper trail to validate the accuracy of reports.

This has caused massive delays as the facts are checked by hand, with results now expected this afternoon.

9 Tara McGowan's ACRONYM has sought to distance itself from Shadow after last night's snafu

9 Joe Biden supporters talk after being counted during an Iowa Democratic caucus Credit: AP:Associated Press

Iowa Democratic Party communications director Mandy McClure said: “This is simply a reporting issue, the app did not go down and this is not a hack or an intrusion.

"The underlying data and paper trail is sound and will simply take time to further report the results.”

Officials reported waiting on the phone for hours overnight.

In the Iowa caucuses, people wishing to support a candidate must be physically present at a meeting at the approximately 1700 sites, where they stand in groups and wait to be counted.

Candidates with 43+ votes get a point proportionally.

Shadow was founded by Gerard Niemira and Krista Davis as Groundbase, and acquired by Obama veteran Tara McGowan's Democrat digital arm, ACRONYM, in January 2019 to rival Trump's tech campaigning.

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Shadow's site says that they "are campaign and technology veterans who have built and implemented technology at Hillary for America, Obama for America, Google, Kiva, Apple, the AFL-CIO, and the DNC."

Ironically, and a little embarrassingly, the site goes on to say: "Our passion is to create a permanent advantage for progressive campaigns and causes through technology."

The company has taken in over $250,000 in payments from the Democrat party and candidates for e-canvassing: $42,500 from at least three candidates including Biden and Buttegieg, plus $60k each from Nevada and Iowa for the now-failed system.

The process was seen as “a potential target for early election interference,” from the outset according to the Des Moines Register.

The kerfuffle has caused the democratic tech umbrella company ACRONYM and one of its directors, David Plouffe, to distance themselves from Shadow.

Bernie fans are furious too as they are yet to get the result for the four horse race between Sanders, Biden, Warren and Buttigieg.

So far there has been no indicator and no results, however some candidates still made weird victory-style speeches to their supporters anyway. 9 Credit: Reuters

Bernie addresses his crowds last night as the results were expected to come in

9 Trump kept it classy as ever. FYI an independent analysis tallied the cost of the website at $2.1 billion.

9 Mr Niemira is not having the best night of his career

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