From Fox News (archive)
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The Iowa Democratic Party (IDP) still has not reported official vote totals in the critical Iowa caucuses as of early Tuesday morning, in a largely unexplained and unprecedented delay that has raised questions about the legitimacy of the contest -- and campaign officials are livid, Fox News has learned.
The Trump campaign, meanwhile, openly suggested that the delay meant that the caucuses were being "rigged," and that the embarrassing night proved that the Democratic Party can't be trusted to run Americans' health care and implement sweeping new government programs. Even if a winner is ultimately announced, the chaos and confusion has seemingly erased any hope for the major momentum boost that would normally result.
"We found inconsistencies in the reporting of three sets of results," the IDP said in a statement at 11:30 p.m. ET. "In addition to the tech systems being used to tabulate results, we are also using photos of results and a paper trail to validate that all results match and ensure that we have confidence and accuracy in the numbers we report. This is simply a reporting issue. The app did not go down and this is not a hack or an intrusion. The underlying data and paper trail is sound and will simply take time to further report the results."
Fox News is told that during a call with the campaigns, an IDP representative said the party would be "getting photos of the paper results sent over," but didn't answer any questions and then hung up on all the campaigns, even as frustrated staffers pushed for answers. A campaign staffer told Fox News the brief call was "crazy." A second campaign official told Fox News, “Yes, they did hang up.”
The Biden campaign then wrote to the IDP, complaining about the "considerable flaws" in the caucus reporting process.
"The app that was intended to relay Caucus results to the Party failed; the Party’s back-up telephonic reporting system likewise has failed," the campaign wrote in a letter. "Now, we understand that Caucus Chairs are attempting to — and, in many cases, failing to — report results telephonically to the Party. These acute failures are occurring statewide. We appreciate that you plan to brief the campaigns momentarily on these issues, and we plan to participate. However, we believe that the campaigns deserve full explanations and relevant information regarding the methods of quality control you are employing, and an opportunity to respond, before any official results are released."
About an hour earlier, IDP spokesperson Mandy McClure said in a statement, "The integrity of the results is paramount. We have experienced a delay in the results due to quality checks and the fact that the IDP is reporting out three data sets for the first time. What we know right now is that around 25% of precincts have reported, and early data indicates turnout is on pace for 2016."
Turnout in the 2016 Democratic caucuses in Iowa was 171,109. That was far below the nearly 240,000 that took part in the 2008 Democratic caucuses, when then-Sen. Barack Obama won the contest.
"With every passing minute that there is a delay, we worry that the process will lose credibility," a top Elizabeth Warren aide told CNN.
In a surreal moment shortly before Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar took the stage to thank her supporters -- even as no voting results were available -- a precinct chief was being interviewed on CNN while he was on hold for more than an hour with the IDP to report results. The IDP then hung up on the precinct chief live on-air after he was too slow to respond once they took him off hold.
At least four precincts had to resolve ties in their vote results by flipping a coin during the evening, Fox News has learned.
Speaking at 11:30 p.m. ET, former Vice President Joe Biden said he felt good about the caucus, then remarked, "It's on to New Hampshire! ... We're in this for the long haul."
Taking the microphone ten minutes later, Sanders said that when the results were in, he had a "good feeling we're going to be doing very very well here in Iowa."
For the first time ever, the IDP has previously said it will report three sets of results at the end of the state’s first-in-the-nation caucuses: a tally of caucus-goers’ initial candidate preference; vote totals from the “final alignment” after supporters of lower-ranking candidates were able to make a second choice, and the total number of State Delegate Equivalents each candidate receives. There is no guarantee that all three will show the same winner.
Earlier in the evening, an IDP official told Fox News the party was doing “quality control checks, making sure the numbers are accurate,” adding that “people are still caucusing; we are working to report results soon.”
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tl;dr: Results from the Democratic Iowa Caucus are late coming in, DNC is blaming an app and claiming they are currently doing "quality control."
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The Iowa Democratic Party (IDP) still has not reported official vote totals in the critical Iowa caucuses as of early Tuesday morning, in a largely unexplained and unprecedented delay that has raised questions about the legitimacy of the contest -- and campaign officials are livid, Fox News has learned.
The Trump campaign, meanwhile, openly suggested that the delay meant that the caucuses were being "rigged," and that the embarrassing night proved that the Democratic Party can't be trusted to run Americans' health care and implement sweeping new government programs. Even if a winner is ultimately announced, the chaos and confusion has seemingly erased any hope for the major momentum boost that would normally result.
"We found inconsistencies in the reporting of three sets of results," the IDP said in a statement at 11:30 p.m. ET. "In addition to the tech systems being used to tabulate results, we are also using photos of results and a paper trail to validate that all results match and ensure that we have confidence and accuracy in the numbers we report. This is simply a reporting issue. The app did not go down and this is not a hack or an intrusion. The underlying data and paper trail is sound and will simply take time to further report the results."
Fox News is told that during a call with the campaigns, an IDP representative said the party would be "getting photos of the paper results sent over," but didn't answer any questions and then hung up on all the campaigns, even as frustrated staffers pushed for answers. A campaign staffer told Fox News the brief call was "crazy." A second campaign official told Fox News, “Yes, they did hang up.”
The Biden campaign then wrote to the IDP, complaining about the "considerable flaws" in the caucus reporting process.
"The app that was intended to relay Caucus results to the Party failed; the Party’s back-up telephonic reporting system likewise has failed," the campaign wrote in a letter. "Now, we understand that Caucus Chairs are attempting to — and, in many cases, failing to — report results telephonically to the Party. These acute failures are occurring statewide. We appreciate that you plan to brief the campaigns momentarily on these issues, and we plan to participate. However, we believe that the campaigns deserve full explanations and relevant information regarding the methods of quality control you are employing, and an opportunity to respond, before any official results are released."
About an hour earlier, IDP spokesperson Mandy McClure said in a statement, "The integrity of the results is paramount. We have experienced a delay in the results due to quality checks and the fact that the IDP is reporting out three data sets for the first time. What we know right now is that around 25% of precincts have reported, and early data indicates turnout is on pace for 2016."
Turnout in the 2016 Democratic caucuses in Iowa was 171,109. That was far below the nearly 240,000 that took part in the 2008 Democratic caucuses, when then-Sen. Barack Obama won the contest.
"With every passing minute that there is a delay, we worry that the process will lose credibility," a top Elizabeth Warren aide told CNN.
In a surreal moment shortly before Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar took the stage to thank her supporters -- even as no voting results were available -- a precinct chief was being interviewed on CNN while he was on hold for more than an hour with the IDP to report results. The IDP then hung up on the precinct chief live on-air after he was too slow to respond once they took him off hold.
At least four precincts had to resolve ties in their vote results by flipping a coin during the evening, Fox News has learned.
Speaking at 11:30 p.m. ET, former Vice President Joe Biden said he felt good about the caucus, then remarked, "It's on to New Hampshire! ... We're in this for the long haul."
Taking the microphone ten minutes later, Sanders said that when the results were in, he had a "good feeling we're going to be doing very very well here in Iowa."
For the first time ever, the IDP has previously said it will report three sets of results at the end of the state’s first-in-the-nation caucuses: a tally of caucus-goers’ initial candidate preference; vote totals from the “final alignment” after supporters of lower-ranking candidates were able to make a second choice, and the total number of State Delegate Equivalents each candidate receives. There is no guarantee that all three will show the same winner.
Earlier in the evening, an IDP official told Fox News the party was doing “quality control checks, making sure the numbers are accurate,” adding that “people are still caucusing; we are working to report results soon.”
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tl;dr: Results from the Democratic Iowa Caucus are late coming in, DNC is blaming an app and claiming they are currently doing "quality control."
