Iowa Caucus Chaos Continues

You’ll probably never know for sure; best to just move on.

On Sunday, the Iowa Democratic Party released results that indicate former South Bend, IN, Mayor Pete Buttigieg won the most national delegates.

• But many news organizations—including the hallowed Associated Press, which historically verifies election results—are not declaring him the winner because of errors in the count.
• Yesterday, both Buttigieg's and Sanders's campaigns requested a recanvass of some precincts. During a recanvass, local election officials double-check worksheets and reporting forms to confirm their accuracy.

To recap: The party refused to declare a winner last Monday night because of a) issues with an app intended to convey vote totals from precincts to IDP leadership and b) inconsistencies in the count after those vote totals were transmitted.

Long story short: The chaos continues. The NYT found that at least one-sixth of the state’s precincts reported data that contained inconsistencies. But the party says it can’t legally alter the results.

• The party’s lawyer, Shayla McCormally, wrote that correcting the numbers would be tantamount to inserting “personal opinion” in the results.

An important tidbit near to this newsletter’s heart: Turnout in Iowa is on pace with 2016’s caucuses but significantly lags 2008.