Separately, the Buttigieg campaign also requested a recanvass, arguing that the former South Bend mayor will retain the lead in state delegate equivalents after any adjustments are made.
“In total, our recanvass request would result in a net increase of 14 SDEs,” Buttigieg wrote in a letter to state party chair Troy Price, which was obtained by POLITICO. In the letter, Buttigieg wrote that he would ask his request be withdrawn if no other candidate submitted their own recanvass request.
The Buttigieg recanvass request argues that the the number of SDEs awarded from satellite caucus locations was “miscalculated and misreported.”
The recanvass requests come a day after the Iowa Democratic Party announced that it reviewed apparent mistakes in 92 precincts that were flagged by three candidates: Sanders, Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren. The mistakes addressed some minor reporting errors, but the bigger issue is that the mathematical worksheets used to convert votes into delegates at some precincts contain other apparent errors.
The party maintains that it cannot fix such mistakes on precinct worksheets without a recount, an argument Price reiterated at a Monday press conference. “A recount would be necessary to alter what those numbers were” on the math worksheets, Price said.
It wasn’t clear how long the recanvassing process would take. Price said the party will, within the next 48 hours, “return its assessment and description of next steps to each respective campaign that made a request,” but that does not mean the entire process will wrap up.
“Now that we know the scope of the results, now we’ll be able to sit down and figure out exactly how long that will take, and what additional steps come after the recanvass is complete,” Price said. “At this point, I can’t tell you exactly how long this will take, but we should have more information in the next couple of days.”
Collectively, the two campaigns asked for a recanvass in 143 precincts, including all of the satellite caucus precincts.
“Once the recanvass and a subsequent recount are completed in these precincts, we feel confident we will be awarded the extra national delegate our volunteers and grassroots donors earned,” Weaver said in the statement.
Separately, The New York Times and other reporters and caucus watchers have flagged problems in the numbers reported on some precinct math worksheets.
The Associated Press still has not called the race in Iowa, citing the close margin between Buttigieg and Sanders in the state delegate equivalent count and the apparent mistakes in some of the data reported by the state party.
Price apologized for the trouble in Iowa and also expressed disappointment that Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez, who has sought to distance himself the fallout. “Troy Price was doing his best, but it wasn’t enough,” Perez said in an interview with The New York Times on Sunday.
“Obviously I was very disappointed by the chairman’s comments,” Price said Monday. “We’ve got a job to do, and that is to finish up this process. If folks want — there’s going to be a time to assign blame, but I will tell you the DNC has been a partner in this process, up to, including after after caucus night.”
Holly Otterbein contributed to this report.
Source: politico.com
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