4chan trolls reportedly behind part of the Iowa caucus chaos

As the public still waits for the full results from Monday’s Iowa caucus, it at least now knows more about what contributed to the fallout. We already knew a few of the major factors: a historically chaotic process combined with a new yet broken app.

Now, we know of another contributor to the mayhem: Trump-supporting 4chan trolls.

Throughout Monday night's caucuses, precinct chairs in Iowa reported issues with the app that was deployed this year to count votes and report the results to the state party. Following the app meltdown, officials tried to call the results in by phone but had trouble getting through to the party and were often met with long wait times.

According to NBC News, 4chan trolls posted the Iowa Democratic Party hotline on the imageboard’s politics section on Monday night, the night of the Iowa caucuses, urging the site’s users to “clog the lines.”

Indeed, Iowa Democratic Party officials say that its staff and volunteers were met with repeated phone calls from people who would immediately hang up and those who voiced their support for President Trump.

State Democratic party officials told Bloomberg News on Wednesday about an influx of phone calls from self-described Trump supporters flooding their lines on the night of the caucuses and NBC News discovered that the post on 4chan was at least one of the sources.

In a statement to NBC News, the Trump campaign denied any involvement in the campaign to jam the Iowa Democraty party’s phone lines.

4chan has long been defined by it’s trolling behavior. However, since Trump kicked off his first presidential campaign in 2015, the anonymous users of the site have become more extreme and more political in their behavior. The purpose of these trolling campaigns is often to simply sow discord among the process and taint the political discourse.

As this action shows, though, 4chan is taking their efforts to the next level which doesn't bode well for the coming months.