Everyone in the world has moved on from the Iowa caucuses counting fiasco, concentrating attention on the Holy of Holies, the New Hampshire Primary still a week away. So perhaps we left the Democrats to lick their wounds too soon.
Today, the Democrats released another slew of results from the caucuses on Monday night that shows South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg winning more votes than Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders with 85 percent of precincts counted. That’s a surprise, of course, as Sanders and Biden — who is currently safely in 4th place — were thought to be the frontrunners prior to the vote. Both Buttigieg and Sanders will apparently get 11 delegates to the convention.
Maybe. Following the release of the results today, the Iowa Democratic Party was forced to admit that those results were in error.
There will be a minor correction to the last batch of results and we will be pushing an update momentarily.
— Iowa Democrats (@iowademocrats) February 5, 2020
The tweet included no mention of any specifics, but the Des Moines Register pointed to one possible explanation.
But in the batch of results released Wednesday afternoon, former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick suddenly had earned 21 state delegate equivalents even though he had spent very little time campaigning in Iowa. The party’s website said 1,677 people supported him on the first alignment and 1,768 people did so in the final alignment.
Patrick was not shown as having received any delegates in the data released earlier Wednesday, when the tally showed 75% of precincts’ results reported.
In Des Moines’ 55th precinct caucus, which was held in the lobby of Capital Square a downtown office building and is also home to the Des Moines Register, the party’s results showed Patrick earning the support of 191 people in the first alignment and 218 in the final alignment. Those numbers actually belonged to U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
The Chairman of the Blackhawk County Democratic Party, Chris Swartz, was nearly beside himself.
We have known for over 24 hours as verified by our county party that @BernieSanders won the #iacaucuses in Black Hawk County with 2,149 votes, 155 County Delegates. #NotMeUs #IowaCaucuses pic.twitter.com/AYYHw8zISs
— Chris Schwartz (@SchwartzForIowa) February 5, 2020
The numbers reported today also showed support for Tom Steyer that actually belonged to Elizabeth Warren. “And no support was tallied for Yang or “uncommitted,” though there were some supporters in the room,” reports the Register.
The Polk County Democratic Chairman Sean Bagniewski also pointed out some errors.
We’re aware that some of the Polk County precincts reported by the Iowa Democratic Party this afternoon were incorrect. Our precinct chairs and our Executive Director Judy Downs have notified the IDP and we’re helping them get it corrected. https://t.co/8hOxXv2Fdi
— Sean Bagniewski (@bagniewski) February 5, 2020
Wednesday afternoon Sean Bagniewski, the Polk County Democratic Party chair, said on Twitter that local Democrats were aware that some of the results the state party had reported for the state’s most populous [county] “were incorrect.” He said the Polk County precinct chairs and party officials were helping the state party get them corrected.
There has to be a point when all results are invalidated and new caucuses should be scheduled. If I were an Iowa voter, I wouldn’t trust the results one bit. I’d be angry, embarrassed, and astonished that in a technologically-advanced age, a political party could screw things up so badly.
Democrats can’t do anything right.
