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At an August news conference, Mr. Price projected total confidence.

“Just know this,” he said, gesturing with a pointed finger for emphasis. “On Feb. 3 of 2020, caucuses will take place in this state. We will be first. And they will be, without a doubt, the most successful caucuses in our party’s history.”

Software on a rushed timeline

Just days before the caucuses, precinct leaders received their first instructions for downloading an app they were to use to record and send results.

The app was created by Shadow Inc., a company recommended to Iowa party officials by Democratic leaders in Nevada, who were working with it as well.

The chief executive of Shadow, Gerard Niemira, was a veteran of the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign, where he oversaw tech products like an app the campaign used to take advantage of the quirky math of caucuses and track results in real time.

Because of the delays in planning Iowa’s caucuses, Shadow personnel didn’t enter into a contract for the Iowa app until the fall of 2019, compressing an already tight timeline on a deal that paid relatively little — a bit more than $60,000 so far — for customized technology services.

In November, Iowa officials gathered in Des Moines with Harvard election security experts including Robby Mook, Mrs. Clinton’s 2016 campaign manager, to test processes involved in the caucuses. But the app wasn’t part of the exercise.

Still, Shadow developed an initial version of the app that month and began testing and updating it, according to a person involved in the effort. As the caucus date approached, more updates came, but the developers didn’t regard them as critical.