The first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses in Iowa are crawling toward completion. Chaos and disarray have apparently paralyzed the process after the state party announced it had found "inconsistencies" in reporting the results. Word is, we’ll get the results later today – after a manual hand count.
What happened? According to initial reports, a reporting app failed, and so did the phone reporting system. Not so, says Iowa Democratic Party chair Troy Price explains that the party is "validating every piece of data we have against our paper trail. That system is taking longer than expected, but it's in place to ensure we are eventually able to report results with full confidence."
To meet those “quality checks,” elections officials across the state are turning to paper backups and in some cases, pictures of results. And while all of the candidates ended up giving speeches last night, they weren’t the ones planned...though many hinted at their own victory. For many, it's off to New Hampshire where the next primary on Tuesday (February 11th).
While Iowa Democratic Party reps are trying to knock down reports of chaos, some of it was captured on live TV. The chairman of a precinct in Iowa's Story County was hung up on by a Democratic National Committee (DNC) official while he was trying to report results. The moment was captured on CNN when Shawn Sebastian said he had been on hold for more than an hour before someone finally picked up. The call didn't last long. Sebastian said it got disconnected.
Democratic candidates aside, President Trump quickly dispatched former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld and former Illinois congressman Joe Walsh. Neither candidate scratched two-percent of the Iowa vote.
Source: NBC News