The Iowa Caucus had unprecedented technical troubles with its voting process on Monday, February 3rd. The confusion and controversy has some voters nervous about the upcoming primaries — including some here in Ohio. 

Frank LaRose, The Ohio Secretary of State, took to Twitter to discuss the differences in procedure. 

“What you saw last night in Iowa, obviously unacceptable – but nothing like what happens here in Ohio,” said LaRose.

Precinct officials in Iowa were unable to report numbers through the app they had in place, which later caused a delay in results. 

The app, which was built by a tech company called “Shadow” for the Iowa Democratic Party, was designed to add up and report caucus votes at each precinct. 

“The app by all accounts, just doesn’t work. So, we’ve been recommended to call into the hotline and the hotline has not been responsive,” said Shawn Sebastian, a precinct secretary in Story County, in a phone call to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. 

With delayed results caused by technical difficulties during last night’s caucuses, many people went to social media to share their fears for future caucuses and primaries. 

“Folks that are jumping to conclusions and fear mongering on social media are being deeply irresponsible,” said LaRose.

However, in Ohio the primary elections are run in a completely different way. 

Unlike Iowa, where the Caucasus is run by volunteers, Ohio’s primary is run by election professionals and bipartisan teams at all 88 county Boards of Elections.

“The way we do our reporting on election night would never rely on something like a smartphone app,” said LaRose. “That’s not the way we do it in Ohio, in fact we have dedicated lines to each county of board of elections and they report to us using those on a periodic basis.”

The final date to register to vote is February 18th & The Ohio Primary Election will be on March 17, 2020.

Nadine Battah is a TV2 reporter. Contact her at [email protected].