The Iowa Democratic Party is facing major structural concerns after last week’s caucus fell into disarray because of both a failure to properly train volunteers on a complicated new app for tallying votes and good old-fashioned discrepancies in how state delegates would be divvied up for the candidates. Based on a Monday press conference, minor structural concerns — involving tape, or maybe glue — appear to be causing problems too. Discussing issues still remaining in the reporting of the caucus results, IDP chair Troy Price powered his way through an unfortunate occurrence:
It’s not a great look for the Iowa Democratic Party to have its sign fall from the podium as its chair addresses the problems remaining in tallying results from a week ago, as two campaigns call for a partial recanvass and the very notion of the caucus system in the Hawkeye State is threatened. Although the video displays the embarrassment of the larger crisis at hand, it also shows Price’s willingness to push through the problem: On Friday, he announced the party would seek an “independent investigation … once we finalize the results.”
A final tally could still be a ways away, however: Though the IDP officially doled out its delegate counts on Sunday night, news organizations have not yet called the race in favor of current winner Pete Buttigieg because of apparent mistakes in the reporting from dozens of the state’s 1,711 precincts. As New Hampshire votes in its primary on Tuesday, the simpler system in New England will likely produce final results before the first-in-the-nation caucuses do — despite the eight-day head start in Iowa.
