The Iowa Democratic Party agreed to begin a partial re-canvas of the state’s caucus, after Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg requested that the party reexamine its tallies, the CNN reported.
The Iowa caucuses took place on Feb. 3, marred by arcane rules and faulty technology it descended into a debacle and national embarrassment for the Iowa Democratic Party.
After the app designed to report results failed because of codding malfunction, the precinct chairs were forced to report vote totals manually via hotline. The hotline failed as well, as the traffic caused extreme delays. It took days to release the full count of votes. Multiple campaigns highlighted inconsistencies and errors in the released data.
After completing the review of 90 precincts, the Iowa Democratic Party announced earlier this week that Buttigieg maintained a 0.1% lead over Sanders, in the state delegate equivalent count. The chaos has allowed both candidates to declare victory, with Buttigieg pointing to the delegate lead and Sanders arguing that he received more total votes. The incident was followed by a downpour of criticism from Democrats and Republicans.
Troy Price, Iowa Democratic Party Chair has acknowledged the mistakes made during the caucus, saying which he called “categorically unacceptable.”
“We cannot go back and change results because it would be us changing the data, changing the information provided from each of the precincts,” a party aide told reporters on Sunday. “
In letters addressed to both campaigns, the state party announced plans to begin a partial re-canvas on Sunday. Party officials expect the process to take two days.
If the re-canvas doesn’t show any significant changes, Pete Buttigieg would be the winner of the Iowa caucuses. According to the Iowa Democratic Party Buttigieg will receive 14 delegates, Sanders will get 12, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren will claim eight, former Vice President Joe Biden will receive six and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar will get one.
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