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Iowa Democrats: Buttigieg edges Sanders for delegates

Price made a similar argument in a press conference on Friday, as did party officials in a background call with reporters on Sunday.

Several of the precincts flagged by campaigns were not updated, despite concerns, because the “math worksheet matches what was reported.”

Separately, The New York Times and other reporters and caucus watchers have flagged problems in the numbers reported on some precinct math worksheets.

Precinct chairs in Iowa are volunteers; they are not paid by the state party or affiliated with any campaigns.

Each math worksheet is signed by the precinct caucus chair, secretary of the caucus and a local representative for each campaign, according to worksheets that have been posted online. At the bottom of each worksheet is a warning that says “any misrepresentation of the caucus information will result in charges of criminal misconduct,” but volunteers can, and have, made mistakes.

The apparent mistakes in precinct-level reporting is just the latest black eye for this year’s Iowa Democratic caucuses.

The release of results was initially delayed for about a day, after an app that was supposed to be used to transmit results from the precinct to the state party failed.

“Look, all I can say about Iowa is, it was an embarrassment,” Sanders said on CNN earlier on Sunday. “They screwed it up badly, is what the Iowa Democratic Party did.”

The debacle has also called into question Iowa’s position at the front of the nominating calendar. Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez, who himself has drawn fire for Iowa’s failures, also said on CNN on Sunday that Iowa’s spot is not secure. When asked if Iowa should lose its first in the nation status, he responded: “Well, that’s the conversation that will absolutely happen after this election cycle.”

It also increases scrutiny for the next contests on the calendar: New Hampshire and Nevada. New Hampshire, which has a state-run primary, has been in a cold war with Iowa as pressure increases to not have two majority-white states at the front of the primary calendar.

“Bill Gardner is the happiest person alive,” said Irene Lin, a Democratic strategist in New Hampshire, referring to New Hampshire’s longtime secretary of state, told POLITICO. “It just strengthens [New Hampshire’s] case for being first-in-the nation versus Iowa.”

It also threw off the plans of Nevada, the next caucus on the calendar. The party said it was scrapping plans to use an app to report results in light of the Iowa caucuses. (However, The Nevada Independent reported that party officials would distribute iPads preloaded with a “tool“ to help organizers calculate the results.)

“The Nevada caucus will be nothing like the Iowa caucus — and in more ways than one,” former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said in a statement on Friday. “Unlike Iowa, we expect Nevada’s reporting process and results will be free from the distrust and uncertainty experienced in the Hawkeye State. I am confident that what happened in Iowa will not happen in Nevada.”

Holly Otterbein reported from Durham, N.H.

Source: politico.com
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