Democratic Caucus ‘Was A Debacle, Period’ – Des Moines Register Demands an Audit

Stories are going around of inconsistent counts, a lack of voter registration forms, and crowded rooms full of confused voters and untrained volunteers, write the editors of the Des Moines Register in an editorial.

What happened Monday night at the Democratic caucuses was a debacle, period.

The state party has so far refused to budge on the issue of further transparency and says that the current results will stand. For its part, Team Bernie is not formally contesting the results, though it says it is doing everything it can to double-check the official tallies with its Iowa staff. The campaign has also called for the state party to release the raw vote totals-something it typically has not done.

With all precincts reporting, Clinton was awarded 701 state delegate equivalents, compared to 697 for Sanders, according to the Associated Press.

Clinton gave only a brief response to the question.

Clinton was ruled the victor of the caucuses by a slim margin of less than half a percentage point.

“That being said, we are working with all campaigns on individual concerns they are bringing to us, and addressing them on a case-by-case basis”, Lau continued.

Sanders’s supporters have complained in recent days that some caucuses, which were administered by the Iowa Democratic Party, were disorganized. When results were reported to the central reporting center in Des Moines, party staffers, who were able to adjust numbers reported in the much vaunted Microsoft app used by the Iowa Democratic party before they were released to the public, unilaterally made changes. “We will look into these concerns and reach out to our county party leadership with any questions”.

“We want to figure this out in the most diplomatic way possible”, said Rania Batrice, Sanders’s Iowa communications director.

A day earlier, Sanders questioned the Iowa results in interviews.

Asked if she would support an audit, if that’s what the state party wanted to do, Clinton said she would: “Whatever they chose to do, that’s fine”. She hailed the Iowa results during an appearance in New Hampshire hours after her victory was declared.

The confusion is partially due to problems endemic in the way the Democratic party runs the Iowa caucuses, the editorial noted, and recommended that the party take steps “to improve the caucuses, as the Republican Party of Iowa did after its own fiasco in 2012”.