Transparency is essential

By Jim Morrow and Randall Becker

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To the Iowa Republican Caucus Review Committee:

For Iowa to maintain its “first in the nation” status, more than lip service must be given to transparency. Every attempt we have made to discover what the “Kansas Firm” is has been stonewalled - either met with silence or straight out refusal to answer.

In a Jan. 4 post titled “Anatomy of Caucus Night in Iowa,” Des Moines Register chief political writer Jennifer Jacobs wrote: “About 50 call-takers at a Kansas firm hired by the Iowa GOP are taking the vote counts from the counties, overseen by a team of about a dozen Iowa Republicans.”

Then about two weeks later, Jacobs wrote: “County officials reported the precinct votes by phone with live call-takers or logged in to a security code-protected website.”

We believe that it is not possible for the Caucus Review Committee (CRC) to recommend improvements for the Iowa caucus without knowing what in fact happened on caucus night. Specifically, the word “transparency” is written and spoken about regularly, but rarely defined. We contend that the integrity of the process itself hinges upon the ability of the most impartial disinterested observer(s) to witness every step of the voting process, the individuals and companies involved whether paid or volunteer.

Anything less is suspect, fraught with, at best, the lack of accountability, and at worst, the likelihood of outright fraud at the level of vote-counting mechanism.

Knowing what the “Kansas Firm” and the “secure website” are is absolutely essential to a real review of the Iowa GOP caucus. Anything less is an insult to the citizens of Iowa, particularly Iowa Republicans who are keen to know their elected officials are selected honestly.

As then-executive director of the Republican Party of Iowa, and now co-chair with David Chung of the Caucus Review Subcommittee on Tabulations and Operations, Chad Olsen had to have either hired the Kansas Firm or approved whoever did hire it. If there is nothing to hide, then why is this information being hidden?

The Kansas Firm represents a black box of sorts. Votes could have gone in one way and come out another. Every attempt we have made to discover this black box - to peek inside it - has been thwarted. What is the Kansas Firm? Is it really in Kansas, or were the “50 call takers” imported to a room at the Radisson Hotel, next to Republican Party headquarters for caucus night?

What is the URL of the “secure website”? Who or what company set it up? Who had access to it?

This is an abbreviated letter. For the full letter and to contact us, please visit CaucusLetter.blog.com

Jim Morrow and Randall Becker of Fairfield are registered Republicans. Comments: satyam108@gmail.com