And the Biggest Loser of the Iowa Caucus Is ... DMT.NEWS
DES MOINES — The Iowa Democratic Party just left the rest of the country hanging.
The Iowa Democratic Party failed to report any results of the closely watched caucuses Monday night amidst widespread reports of problems with precincts reporting, leading to confusion and finger-pointing as the campaigns tried to figure out what the hell was going on.
The chaos left presidential candidates flying blind, the state party doing major damage control, and President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign licking its chops over a Dems-in-disarray narrative.
Iowa Democratic Party leaders attributed the delay to inconsistencies in reporting to a failed app and an attempt to report three different results simultaneously: the raw vote count, the second ballot, and the final delegates received.
“We found inconsistencies in the reporting of three sets of results,” said Mandy McClure, communications director for the Iowa Democratic Party. “In addition to the tech systems being used to tabulate the results, we are also using photos of results and a paper trail to validate that all results match and ensure that we have confidence and accuracy in the numbers we report.”
She added that the party believes the party does not believe the snafu was the result of any hack or technical failure. “This is simply a reporting issue,” McClure said. “The app did not go down and this is not a hack or an intrusion. The underlying paper trail is sound and it will simply take time to report the results.”
The party called an emergency meeting with the campaigns to explain what was happening, and in the words of one Democratic insider, “figure out a way to unfuck the situation.” But the party did not give the presidential campaigns themselves any indication of when those results will be reported. A representative for the DNC did not respond to VICE News’ request for additional comment.
State officials were supposed to report three sets of data from precincts across the state: the number of caucus-goers who originally backed a candidate; the final tally after they realigned mid-caucus; and the number of delegates received.
The introduction of a new app to report those numbers from roughly 1,700 caucus sites across the state raised questions of additional technical difficulties or a potential security breach. Some of those fears may have borne out.
Mark Gitenstein, a Biden supporter who served as a caucus chairman in Dallas Center, told VICE News as he was leaving Biden’s afterparty that he ran into trouble.
“I tried to use the app as a caucus chair and I couldn't make it work,” he said. “So I had to call it in.”
Cover: Supporters of Democratic U.S. presidential candidate senator Bernie Sanders gather in Des Moines, Iowa, on Feb. 3, 2020, ahead of the all-important Iowa caucuses later in the day. (Photo by Kyodo News via Getty Images)
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by David Uberti, Khareem Sudlow
