We can assume that both parties have been making such mistakes for a long time in Iowa, because only the final results have been announced. In 2012, the Republican caucuses (which use much simpler methods to arrive at results) were won by Rick Santorum but the GOP bosses declared Mitt Romney the winner. We only found out about this later because there were Santorum supporters who saw it happen and (when the party leaders tried to keep it hidden) went public.
So many Iowa Democratic Party officials did the math wrong that the national party must in future require this state to instead use a primary.
The problems were badly exacerbated when Sanders at the last minute demanded that the party use an app known to be untested and soon found to be very poorly designed. And the party utterly neglected security, allowing Republicans to jam the phone line dedicated to helping precincts use that app.
Worst of all, only 177,000 Iowans attended the Democratic caucuses and thousands left before the second round of voting! This makes it easy for an extremist with fewer but enthused followers to garner more delegates than his standing with all voters would merit, as was the case with Sanders.
2
Drop the caucuses. They are not fair. Many people cannot show up on the time allotted. They can force people to choose someone other than their first choice.
Wouldn't require people to understand basic math.
1
I am incredulous that the caucus system is defended or even being considered for being maintained by Democrats after this fiasco. It is more or less an Electoral College system in another form that deprives the winner of the majority of votes, in this case statewide, of being recognized as the winner. The same lack of commitment to empowering voters with deciding who is elected has brought us GW Bush, and now the horrors of the thoroughly discredited and entirely corrupt Trump administration. To me there can be no further justifications for caucuses to ever be used to choose delegates for a state political convention. The caucuses have exposed Democrats to cries of foul play from Republicans eager to find any way to deflect well deserved criticism that they themselves are the epitome of corruption. Enough is enough!
4
You put a crucial electoral process in the hands of untrained amateurs with poor tech and math skills, this is what you're going to get.
If a vote like this had occurred in some Central American or African country, American poll monitors or democracy watchdogs would be loudly discrediting the outcomes. It happens here, and everyone shrugs.
4
I smell a rat. When they cannot win honestly, they will cheat. It was what happened in 2016.
Of particular interest is why the candidates favored by the establishment suddenly leaped in their standings in the later rounds of recounts.
There are only two ways to look at this when there are such large changes. Either the process is so bad that it can cause such large deviations (meaning the whole process should be tossed) or they changed the rules in the middle of it so that the "correct" candidates could win.
4
Iowa should just decide, at least for this year, to go the way of Virginia and give all delegates to the popular vote winner.
1
Some things can be fixed. This is not one of them. Everyone should be able to vote from home on a ballot mailed to them. For a party that desperately needs to increase voter participation this is absolutely crazy. Caucuses are voter suppression. Iowa is aging and turnout actually went down this year. People who have no say in the primary are less enthusiastic about voting in the general election. I wish we were a social democracy, but it is clear we are a long ways from it.
2
Florida's reputation for bad vote counts may have been overtaken by the Democratic Primary in Iowa. The inaccuracies reported in this article reveal a caucus process that is flawed from the get go. What were they thinking? At this point the Iowa results continue to lack credibility and will virtually mean nothing in the determination of the eventual Democratic candidate. Let's move on to other states and debates to determine a viable candidate.
1
This brings me to wonder about the value of the Iowa Assessment and Iowa ITBS tests that we all took in school. Did those results point out that basic math skills are not that common, or did we score poorly, but were not given corrective instruction?
1
None of this is surprising. People make mistakes, and people working under stress, and the precinct leaders were under tremendous stress, make more mistakes.
There's never been a need to award state delegate equivalents at the precinct level. The raw votes could be summed at the state level and delegates allocated on a truly proportional basis, not on the electoral college basis now employed.
Summing at the state level would help, but the real problem is that the caucus system belongs to activists with the energy and stamina to show up and stay, and effectively disenfranchises voters who cannot devote an evening to caucus.
When I lived in Minnesota, we caucused. It was exciting and satisfying. But even then I realized it was not democratic. Minnesota will hold a presidential primary this year, the first since 1956 I believe, but retain precinct caucuses for other party business. Iowa and the rest of the caucus states should hold presidential primaries in 2024.
1
@James Conner
I don't think you appreciate the degree to which the party's hand is put on the scale in assigning delegates to the county conventions (and their precincts), which is then used to generate the highly contrived State Delegate Equivalents which the media then hops on. As Iowa is arguably the most influential contest in the nomination process and, in fact, the entire presidential election (because the selection only reduces from 2 options to 1 in the general election), the effects of this corruption from the democratic party and mainstream media is profound. I'm thinking that the accounting errors discussed here are minor relative to this intrinsically corrupt process for choosing our president. Hopefully it will now be exposed, unless we follow too many of these Red Herrings.
4
App based counting has no underlying framework. 4G Cellular nets are not like 2D and 3D networks. Iowa should have had a base network plan long ago. This was pure arrogance and negligence.
I have not participated in a caucus, but I assume the people running one understand a few basic principles. The mistakes noted appear to be made by errors an 8th grader with a calculator could figure out. It appears the results require simple math. I don’t think anything that occurred involved intentional mischief. I assume the problem involves our education system. Democrats in Iowa paid for a program to report votes in the caucuses. The programmers must have assumed they had the math skills to enter the data, which they didn’t.
1
What’s interesting is that the Iowa caucus results have likely been riddled with errors for years or decades. The reporting process this year just brought this to light.
5
@Marcia
Yes, and now we can see how much of a travesty State Delegate Equivalents (based on arbitrary county convention delegates) are, even if there's not a SINGLE error in the entire operation. The media now needs to explain itself why it has been using this bogus metric all these years. I think we already know why....
3
Why couldn’t Iowa use ranked choice voting instead of caucuses for its primaries? It would seem to get to the same point faster and more reliably. Maybe there is some magic in peer pressure in the caucus system, but I don’t see it.
2
It’s why they put erasers on pencil ends.
My sense is, if you want a debacle, you’ll get one.
They need to redesign it, as a format.
I liked meeting my neighbors and caucusing with them. It might be flawed which we could fix, but it was a great experience. Maybe we should look more at the delegate process. At least the process of the caucus feels like direct democracy.
1
To be fair, they did the best they could with what they had. Let's remember these are corn farmers and hog callers.
Wow! These are such simple mistakes that could have been avoided with good training of the precinct chairs. Perhaps, the caucus should be replaced with a primary where the math is even more simpler.
This is exactly why this country should do away with caucuses altogether. I live in a caucus state. It's confusing, it's complicated, and I'd venture to guess that if we'd been breaking out the results all along the way they did in Iowa this year, we'd have discovered that the caucuses were riddled with error, especially when there are multiple candidates. I imagine things weren't as complex when we had just two major candidates, like in 2016. But with multiple candidates, things can't help but go wrong.
4
Counties were not included in this calculation because " they follow different rules."
Exactly, how does this magic arrive?
Is this article stating that each County in Iowa has different "rules", electorial? , for determining who is a delegate and how they vote?
In California, we have the State Election Codes, which are on the same level as most of our other other 28 State Code Collections. (We have more law than that). So, are these rules made up by the Democratic party at one time or are they passed by the State Legislature somehow?
The article seems to be implying is that several of the major counties in Iowa allowed a Delegate vote to Biden where none was permitted.
It doesn't seem to point in any other direction.
The complex rules for hiring or electing a person as a Democratic Delegate in the Presidential election - what are they? Are they published?
2
@RR
I'd suggest you look at the Vox and Mother Jones reviews of this highly cryptic process... but even they don't get at the crux of the matter. The amazing thing is, among party insiders (including relatives of mine in Iowa) it seems to be pretty common knowledge. The same probably goes for media insiders, since the media HEAVILY uses their bogus measure (SDEs), nationally (as opposed to locally, where the Des Moines Register actually calls my relatives in the party during every caucus at home, sort of a hotline, to keep on top of key contests in counties/precincts with inflated delegate numbers). I suspect that county convention delegates in Iowa are doled out to county chairs like Al Capone doled out turkeys at Thanksgiving to police precinct captains in Chicago (where one side of my family is from... Back of the Yards). The cops were ashamed if they didn't get a turkey....
3
So only this year these numbers have been made public and we've seen the mess behind the facade....I just wonder about previous years when these numbers were not being reported - people still had to do the same count and same complicated calculation....wonder how many of those were inaccurate too. It's highly unlikely that this is the first year they've made an error.
7
After Tom Perez - chair of the DNC came down hard on the Iowa Democratic Party and shouldered none of the blame, until news networks linked the ap to one being developed for other states, and tracked down contracts dictated by the DNC that gave them unusual abilities to interact with the ap!
Officials from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) had access to and were involved with the creation of the app that botched the Iowa caucuses, according to a report from Yahoo News.
National party officials pushed for "continual access" to the app in its initial contract, the report said.
The app, developed by Shadow Inc., led to delays and inconsistencies in reporting of caucus data from the closely-watched caucuses.
The contract said that Shadow would provide monthly updates about the app's development to the DNC, according to the report.
5
Wow. And without any interference, real or alleged, from Mr. Putin.
One wonders if mistakes were made in previous years, before error checking was performed.
If you really wish to be scared about the trustworthiness of American Democracy, check out some of the articles about Brenda Snipes, a Democrat, and until recently the election supervisor in highly consequential Broward County, Florida.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/19/us/elections/florida-brenda-snipes-broward-elections-resigns.html
3
I agree with Mike Carruthers that the math should all have been centralized. Might it be true that any caucus site didn't have a laptop with a network connection? A simple web-based application would have sufficed to collect the counts of how many people supported which candidates in which round. All the math would have been run on the servers. The sites could have each signed and submitted a handwritten set of voter counts on paper. That paper form could have included something like: "write the computer's totals here: ___ Do they match yours? y/n. If no, fix your entry on the computer." That would help ensure the counts were recorded properly. The web app could have told them that their final rounds had more voters than their first rounds, so they could recheck before submitting bad data. And told them (for rare cases) when they had to toss a coin for too-evenly-split voter groups. When they'd entered the voter counts, then they could press a button to get the math results, and it's all reported to the state party. Also, an app (whether mobile or web) should have been tested relentlessly before the event. And the backend code should run in the cloud with automatic scalability to deal with a variable number of precincts reporting simultaneously. Finally, all such software should be open source so it can be reviewed by thousands of eyes to help catch bugs and suggest improvements.
1
Why the Democratic Party is wasting time and resource in Iowa is a mystery to me? The state is clearly is not representative of the Democratic Party. The turnout was lacking to say the least.
The state continues to elect Republicans to represent the state at both the state and federal levels.
WIIFM Iowa?
4
@Listening to Others
Should we drop South Carolina too?
Iowa is not really the problem (except for its agribusiness/Farm Bill handouts) - nor are caucuses the problem. (The Republican caucus in Iowa runs like a charm; they just count up their ballots like a primary). The problem is the Iowa and national Democratic parties and the media, who work together to fix the outcome in Iowa and parlay that through the entire process, giving Americans one of just two miserable options for president. No wonder why only 1/4 of the voting public are Democrats (and the same amount for Republicans) - and 1/2 of voting-age America doesn't vote at all!
3
Thanks, Iowa. I thought they finally died, but you decided to breathe new life into Bernie conspiracy theorists.
3
So much effort and analysis to hide the fact that the DNC has already chosen Bloomberg.
7
If these numbers are accurate, then The Iowa results should be thrown out. Period.
5
There is no “calculus” in Iowa’s math. In fact the is no algebra in Iowa’s math. There is simply addition and possibly subtraction for anyone who was smart enough to know that they made a mistake.
2
@Bill
No calculus, no differential equations, but it's not just addition and subtraction. Foe instance, I believe that county convention delegate fractions are multiplied in the formula for (pre)setting State Delegate Equivalents for each county (and their precincts).
1
The mistakes reported in this article should have been easy to spot. I wonder how these mistakes were not caught by the vote counters. I hate to speculate, but, could these mistakes been the results of deliberate mis-reporting by over-zealous supporters of one or more candidates?
2
The "cure" is a statewide primary on Super Tuesday. Let's end this nonsense.
2
@Grandpa Bob The cure is a nationwide or region wide primary with ranked voting and right to cross parties to vote.
1
@Grandpa Bob A single national primary is a terrible idea. It would mean that only candidates who were well-known and well-funded at the beginning would stand a chance.
Anyone reading this should be horrified of what the Iowa Democrats did. And the party never said “shame on us?”
6
@Machiavelli - This isn't "what the Iowa Democrats did." This is the result of a state that mandates caucuses instead of primaries. The caucus system is complex, it's confusing, it's run by volunteers, and it's guaranteed to yield errors. The 2012 GOP caucus was even more riddled with errors than this one was, to the point that three different candidates were declared the winner on three consecutive days.
1
The Democratic Party is not earning respect with these errors. The leadership doesn’t seem to be equipped to lead. Bumbling may be is expected, but this whole debate process has appeared to be more complex than those who think they are in charge can handle successfully. Those of us who look for a strong show of leadership in this party aren’t finding it. It is too important to just shrug off as human error. It shouldn’t be like herding cats!
2
@JoAnne hungate - Have you ever participated in a caucus? Unless you have, stop being so hard on Iowa Democrats. It's impossible to administer a caucus without manifold errors.
If Iowa is anything like my county, the poll workers are all about 80 years old, and they move slowly and struggle to find names in an alphabetical list. This doesn’t surprise me at all. Some people are attributing these mistakes to our failed education system. I don’t think that’s the problem here. I’m not trying to be ageist, but it’s true.
4
It bothers me that a startup company of Clinton campaign veterans was paid at least $60,000 each by multiple state parties, which worked hand-in-hand with the DNC on the phone ap that failed spectacularly. It bothers me that the DNC chair, Tom Perez acted like it was all the fault of the Iowa Democratic Party, until news reporters researched the ap linked to multiple states. Among the ap-development company's largest clients is Pete Buttigieg's presidential campaign, which paid $42,500 to the firm in July 2019 for "software rights and subscriptions."
The 2020 Iowa Caucus proves what Bernie Sanders said in 2016: That there are a lot of errors being made every year, and there's little oversight focused on making sure the vote counts and math worksheets are accurate before awarding delegates. But what bothers me a lot is the scope of the contract for this ap, which seems to say the DNC will have a lot of abilities that stretch far beyond a basic tool for reporting precinct votes to state officials.
16
Why should national party conventions be able to dictate who the presidential candidates are? Eliminate all segregated partisan primaries.
Let presidential elector candidates petition to be on the general election ballot in each state. If Sanders or Klobuchar want a particular elector, let them help gather signature.
Voters approve of as many or as few elector candidates as they wish. Electors chose by PAV.
The only elegant solution under these circumstances is to fall back on the popular vote to determine the winner.
9
The most disturbing part is that Troy Price reportedly told the campaigns (in a conference call) that this was the first time they had to calculate the first and final alignments. Jeff Weaver of the Sanders campaign correctly pointed out that they ALWAYS had to calculate them, and this was just the first time they were expected to REPORT them. Then Troy Price hung on the campaigns.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/09/us/politics/iowa-democratic-caucuses.html
7
It's harebrained to ask hundreds, maybe thousands, of volunteers, most of whom I am guessing are retirees, to manually record hundreds of votes each over two alignments using an app that they are not familiar with or that doesn't work and/or filling out new badly designed worksheets.
I am embarrassed to have to explain this to my family and friends in Germany. The richest, most powerful country on Earth lacks the organization and technology to produce reliable election results in a tiny state with a population less than that of the city of Berlin - in a presidential election most would agree will be the most important one in many decades, not only for the US, but the world at large.
12
Recommend scrapping the caucus for the ballot.
• The biggest reason for scrapping the caucus: a lot of people prefer to vote and leave. They can’t afford the time it takes to caucus: they work evenings; they have to take care of children; they’re going to be out of town; they’ve got to get up early the next morning and go to work; standing around for 3 hours isn’t really possible for health reasons; other reasons I haven’t thought of. I personally enjoy the chaos—the chance to diplomatically tell other people why I don’t like their candidate—but a simple vote by ballot would allow more people to participate.
5
@Cecil Cook • The 2020 caucus was too complex in the data it was asking from its staff of volunteers. They were expected to come up with 5 sets of numbers: total attendance; 1st round count for each candidate; a viability calculation; a 2nd round count for each candidate; a calculation of the number of delegates each candidate would receive for the county convention. The calculations involved 2 different rules for rounding: for viability always round up; for delegate count round up decimals of 0.5 or greater. In addition to this, they were expected to manage 1) Voter Roll; 2) New Dem Registration Sheet; 3) IDP Contribution envelope and money collected; 4) Nomination Papers; 5) Spoiled Presidential Preference Sheet; 6) Summary of Caucus Results: Delegates (white copy); 7) Summary of Caucus Results: Alternates (white copy); 8) Caucus Math Work Sheets (white copy); 9) Youth Caucus Attendee Form; 10) Resolution Submission Forms; 11) Any county contributions; 12) County Candidate Petitions; 13) Summary of Results Form: Delegates (yellow copy); 14) Summary of Results Form: Alternates (yellow copy); 15) Caucus Math Worksheet (yellow copy); 16) Voter Registration Forms; 17) Summary of Caucus Results: Alternates (pink copy); 18) Summary of Caucus Results: Delegates (pink copy).
5
This article is an excellent look at the problems with the Iowa caucus.
Now, compare what happened in Iowa with what happened a week later in New Hampshire when NH held a paper ballot and scanner primary. The method was virtually error free. The tabulated results were available a few hours after the polls closed and the results were able to be certified by the NH Secretary of State the next afternoon.
Time to get rid of the caucus.
13
Since both the state of Iowa and the caucus system, in general, are taking a lot of heat for this debacle, it's worth mentioning that this is really a phenomenon of Democratic Party politics, not just in Iowa, but at the national level. (They approve of and are complicit in the presetting of county convention delegates which highly determine the number of state delegate equivalents to be assigned within the precincts of each county convention.) Rarely is it noted that the Republican caucus in Iowa simply counts up the votes from written confidential ballots, like most primaries do. Mainstream media also facilitates corrupt practices of the democratic party machine by adopting their arbitrary measures (SDEs) to designate the "winner" in Iowa and then amplify its effects, sequentially, through the nomination process.
11
@carl bumba - Check out the results of the GOP caucus in Iowa. They were worse than this year's Democratic results. In fact, before it was all over, Iowa Republicans had declared three different candidates to be the winner. Look it up.
2
If Iowa is going to re-do their election process; they should also set rules upon how to coin toss. Some of the flips, catches, slight of hands was down right dishonest and blatantly ignorant upon how to a simple coin flip.
https://twitter.com/townhallcom/status/1224535227617464320
The ability to make something so simple into something so hard is a truly human endeavor.
8
Only the counting of voters and votes should be done per precinct. The assignment of delegates should have been centralized and computerized. This really seems basic.
2
One consequence of Iowa being first, is that both Democrats and Republicans vote to maintain subsidies for corn.
Iowa doesn't grow the corn you buy at the store. Iowa corn is used for
- high fructose corn syrup: no nutritional value, contributes to obesity and diabetes
- ethanol. barely energy neutral most of the time. Props up the price of gasoline
- dairy and cattle feed. Milk and beef for an already obese nation.
13
It's called, Keep Bernie From Winning Math. Democrats see the promise land and will not be deterred by math.
15
The solution seems obvious: ranked choice voting by paper ballot. The caucus is essentially ranked choice voting, but acted out with human bodies and tons of needless potential for error.
3
Maybe, just maybe, if you have a process that is so difficult for your precincts to figure out perhaps it is time to just vote in a regular primary with a regular paper ballot.
Also, go to the back of the line and see if there isn't another state more able to handle the apparent pressure of casting a ballot.
2
We should focus on fixing the problem instead of fixing the blame. The Democrats’ attempt to report first and second choices yielded some interesting results, which by the way, weren’t that far off the mark. If you listened to the victory speeches—I only listened the three of them—you will notice that both Sanders and Buttigieg knew they did well, and Yang knew he didn’t. They probably based their assumptions off the precinct captain reports from their individual campaigns. But this is 2020, not 1820, and the reasonable expectation is immediate results after a long and expensive campaign in the first contest. We owe this to both the candidates and the country. The bottom line is that a simple ballot would go a long way toward including more people in the process, and giving the country the timely results that it deserves.
2
@Cecil Cook -- A few states have gone to Ranked Choice voting, which basically is the Iowa Caucus process. Incorporate Ranked-choice paper ballots fed through scanners and THEN award delegates, based on the votes not on some magic-match process at 1,700 precincts.
1
@Cecil Cook -- A few states have gone to Ranked Choice voting, which basically is the Iowa Caucus process. Incorporate Ranked-choice paper ballots fed through scanners and THEN award delegates, based on the votes not on some magic-math process at 1,700 precincts.
honestly, with all the good intentions and heartfelt plans, I simply don't trust the Democrats to govern.
Only Bloomberg has a track record of competence, clarity of thought and success. the others are politicians and half wits at that. I'd prefer Mitt Romney to most of the current Dem candidates.
Bloomberg is the best choice. I kinda hope he picks Yang as his running mate. Success + success as the winning party ticket.
1
I thought Iowa had been doing this caucus routine for years. Apparently the organizers plainly forgot how they worked. How so? Due to Iowa’s lengthy experience with caucuses we all expected a smooth result. Actually, the result was a monstrous disaster. That should be it for Iowa. Their confusion is not to be rewarded with a repeat performance.
2
@NOTATE REDMOND They substantially changed the procedures this year, with the big change being precincts reporting actual voter counts, not just calculated delegate counts. They have probably been making some of these errors for years, but there was no way of knowing. Bernie's complaints of being robbed (which he ALWAYS complains about) led to the changed procedures.
The problems with the reporting application and tabulation of results was an unrelated issue, though it caused other inaccuracies, some significant.
@MarkInSF
Please feel free to post any links/proofs of Senator Sanders saying he was robbed at the Iowa caucuses in '16. He simply asked for "transparency". They wished to see the first and second count. They never stated how this was to be done, just that to be fair and aboveboard, show us the numbers.
It was because of this new transparency the mistakes (PC) in Iowa were seen in the sunlight.
8
Haven't finished the article. But why do I think that the "we may never now" is Times-speak for "It sure looks like Sanders won, but we won't admit that. Look at how we've covered the guy; you'd have to be nuts to expect us to take his side."
15
I worked with a Canadian several years ago. He told me he was astounded that in the US, the campaigning and voting process was two years. He explained to me that in Canada, it takes about 3 months. The time and money wasted in the US for the election process is crazy. Imagine if we had all that time and money spent of the multitude of problems faced in America today, instead of all of it squandered on a two year power grab?
6
@Sue M. The political class of either party does well regardless of who wins or loses. Politics is big business.
3
For the purposes of determining who eventually wins the Democratic nomination, Iowa's 41 delegates to the national convention should be disqualified from voting. Sorry, guys. You blew it.
4
@abigail49 - If that's the case, then no caucus results should count, because they all work the same way and are no doubt equally riddled with errors.
1
The ignorance and predjudice on display in these comments is staggering. Most commenters don't know the difference between a caucus, a primary, and an election. The vast majority are completely uninformed as to the purpose of the Iowa caucuses (to select delegates to the county party's convention, to elect members of the county party's central committee, and to discuss the county party's political platform). Some of the generalizations about the people of Iowa are nothing short of deplorable.
We are not voting for president of the United States -- we are voting on which of our neighbors we want to represent us at the county party convention. The process is accurate and representative enough for that purpose.
3
@Mary M
Ah, well then, if you're state is only picking delegates, there really is no need for you to go first in the nation.
Other states ARE voting for president of the U.S.
Thank you for clearing this up so plainly.
8
Either the same states go first in primaries, or they take turns, or they all go at the same time.
An advantage of the same states is that candidates, staffs, and voters have been through it before and know what problems to watch for and handle and in general how things work.
An advantage of different states is the testing of how candidates, staffs, and voters figure out and respond to new situations.
An advantage of all going at the same time is that the election time is shortened and there is less opportunity for our political opinion industry to spin and predict and create analyses that will quickly be obsolete and play sportscaster and odds maker and earn as much as possible from the election. Going at the same time would drastically shrink a major political industry.
Either we use a primary system that resulted from a long string of power struggles and attempts to embed particular political ideas and advantage certain candidates or philosophies, or we go to a primary system rationally designed and thoroughly tested by an objective party (if any still can be agreed on, which is doubtful) to give results that most people would agree are fair. It is too late for a rational design because we cannot agree on what is fair (segregation and slavery were seen as fair by at least a substantial minority). So we continue to fight on and pretend that our side is what most would call fair.
Bless their hearts but I'm sure glad the Iowa DNC aren't trying to dock a spacecraft with the International Space Station.
3
After reading all that...who won? None of the examples stated show Sanders losing any delegates, so it appears that he might of won. When is the national TV media gonna reallocate the final delegate and declare Bernie the winner? Doubt that will ever happen, Chuck Todd won't even admit that he is a front runner. Only the truth shall set us free, let's hope the truth is able to get out.
8
@iiTowKneeii I guess you didn't read the article. One example had Warren and Sanders winning 2 delegate each when they should have gotten zero in that district.
1
I used the app in my precinct. One problem with the app was that you could not go back and change in case you made an entry error. Even restarting it just brought you back to where you were.
Because of this, I was forced to use the worksheet and do the math there...in the room...with press, and observers, and tired caucusers, and noisy children, and campaigns breathing down my neck, and knowing that we still had the hard work of signing up actual delegates against an increasingly restless crowd.
I got the app to work by fudging a number that made it all work out so that the delegate count matched my worksheet. I know my delegate count was right, but the raw vote count reported by my app would be one low (for a non-viable candidate who refused to re-align). I tried to call it in later, but since they had my app numbers, they blew me off and said it was fine.
12
@Lawrence
Thank you for your service ! And your recollections.
7
What a complete horror show mess. Just add up the total number of votes and be done with it. Iowa is so small, relatively unpopulated and homogeneous that going through so many complicated mathematical gyrations in an effort to create a mini-electoral college makes no sense.
3
As a native Iowan now living in Seattle, I find the coverage of the caucuses fascinating. A few thoughts:
- Voting in blue states isn't always "counted" right the first time -- even in a state-run election (ask Christine Gregoire and Dino Rossi) And my goodness. How quickly we've forgotten the hanging chads! https://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/31/us/governorelect-declared-in-washington-recounts.html
- Seems like the Dems could be headed to a contested convention and that seems to be a far more interesting story than one about math (sorry Yang!)
- Should Iowa be first? Maybe not. Should the party get its act together? Yes. Should the party suggest that we all vote on the same day, by mail? Counted and then recounted by human beings paid to do so? I think so.
- Too rural? What does that even mean? Plop in any other descriptor and that statement gets pretty offensive.
- The two vote process does allow for some interesting analysis; agree that ranked choice primaries could be a good replacement for the caucus. https://www.npr.org/2020/02/08/803953713/graphics-how-iowas-vote-totals-shifted-from-the-1st-alignment-to-the-2nd
- I assume you'll be checking the math of all other primary results? Can't wait.
Thanks to all those poll workers who did it properly.
3
@L. Kurt Engelhart Thanks to all those poll workers who tried.
2
@Lenny-t
Seriously?
No, no thanks to those who tried.
Thanks to those who tried and did it properly.
Do we thank astronauts who tried but did it wrong?
Space Shuttle designers?
Bridge engineers and builders?
Our soldiers, sailors, and Marines?
Doctors and nurses?
Gasoline truck drivers?
You don't try. You do it, and you do it right.
This is what's wrong with this country.
Enjoy your four more years of you-know-who.
Talk about a Rube Goldberg contraption! There is no reason whatsoever to make voting for a Presidential candidate so incredibly complicated.
It's an example of transparency run amuck.
1
Stat 101 teaches over a stanine ( about 7 percent) for error alone says there is a real possibility of the 1/2 stanine ( the remainder of 3 percent) being something other than error. That could be fraud might be the explanation for 3 percent of the errors. Then an asterisk could be put near the candidates’ tallies of plus or minus 3 percent to be really fair in a statistical analysis.
1
Has this just surfaced problems that have occurred in past years, but were "adjusted" somewhere and reported as True? I seem to recall that the reporting of the First Alignment and Final Alignment were new, so it may be that delegate counts have never been never reliable, but the methodology was opaque.
1
@Tussmonk Yes, that's very likely true. Bernie's complaints from four years ago are why the raw vote counts were reported this time.
Some of the errors this time, as reported in the article, were caused by the meltdown of the reporting procedure. That didn't happen in previous years, as it was mainly caused by the need to report a lot more numbers than used to be.
1
As a first-time caucus goer, I found the spirit of the caucuses exciting. Respectful conversations happened before the first alignment and between alignments. I made the decision to caucus for Elizabeth Warren, she was viable after the first alignment and I proudly signed my card for Warren. I enjoyed talking with neighbors, sharing ideas, and asking questions. During the second alignment, Amy Klobuchar was able to gain enough support to earn a delegate to the county event, which was met with a resounding cheer from all around (regardless of alignments). I found the whole process to be fun and invigorating. Everything ran very smoothly, and no glaring problems were noted.
With all that being said, I think the process for counting heads, using the two-sided card system, and assigning delegates is riddled with opportunity for error. This is precious data, and it needs to handled with precious care. The directions should have been sent out early, precinct officials should have been assigned and trained, and a test run of EVERY precinct using the app should have happened. Errors should have been addressed, and people unable to fulfill their posts should have been removed. The NYTimes has done a simple error analysis of simple math, and has proven that none of these fail-safe practices took place.
This needs to change, these errors should never be allowed again. The future of the Iowa Caucuses is bleak, but with a serious overhaul, this might not be my only caucus ever.
3
Wow...and to think if they didn't do this silly caucus thing all they'd have to do is add up votes...
2
This app was concocted by Hillary people and Buttigieg paid money into it. This after Buttigieg caused the results of a poll not to be released on the eve of the caucuses. Tom Perez and the rest of the Hillary cohort in the DNC need to go. Enough with the conspiracies already.
13
Caucuses are a messy and undemocratic way of sampling the voting opinions of the small percentage of people able to attend them.
It's high time they were replaced with a ranked choice primary to keep the good of this system and excise the bad in favor of a more democratic republic.
3
Someone else has probably noted this already. You flag the Biden result in CR406, Black Hawk County as an erroneous assignment of delegates. However, it is the Steyer First Alignment vote that screams irregularity. Whether or not one rounds to an integer, Steyer, with only 3 votes, should have been eliminated in the first round of voting. He should never have been in the game for the Final Alignment.
3
@william madden Steyer gained support from other unviable candidates in the second alignment and became viable.
1
Maybe Iowans need to work hard on their Math
Did the mistakes give Buttegieg more delicates than he should have had? NYT does tell us if results would have been different according to their math. This could be important for Bernie and Mayor Pete.
6
“We do not believe that we should be altering the official record of what happened in the room,” Troy Price, the party chairman, said Monday at a news conference.
Yes, what happened in the room that night are documented math (and other) mistakes! Surely correcting bad math and other errors is not illegal?
11
@Julie The reason the party takes this position is because the math worksheets are reviewed and signed off by the chair and also a captain representing each candidate.
2
With the delegate counts in doubt, then, I think we can safely say that Bernie won via the popular vote.
3
@A Not based on this article you can't. Nothing reported here supports that interpretation aside from your wishful thinking. It points out a very few errors as examples, and they demo strata no consistent pattern favoring one candidate over others. The sample us too small for that.
Bless your heart, even the New York Times’ math appears to be wrong. Take for example the math you report for Precinct 36, Dubuque County.
According to the article, the first step in determining the number of delegates awarded to each candidate is dividing the total number of delegates (in this case, 7) by each viable candidate’s percentage of the vote share. You report, and I confirmed, that Pete Buttigieg received 0.32 of the vote share.
Yet the Times reports the raw number of delegates to be awarded to Mr. Buttigieg as 2.22, when the real number should be 2.24, if I’ve done the math correctly. (The Times made similar arithmetic errors in calculating raw, unrounded delegates for each viable candidate, except Bernie Sanders.)
While these arithmetic errors do not change the final outcome you have suggested for each viable candidate, it underscores how fraught this caucus process is.
Bottom line: even with time to conduct a calm, sober review, outside the harsh glare of cable news media, the Times made errors. No system of voting should be this complicated with so many opportunities for mistake. The Iowa system must be overhauled
9
Your math is questionable. In the example given for viability there were 34 total votes. 15% of 34 is 5.1. Depending on precision you could reasonably argue that the cutoff was 5 votes not 6 votes. Understandably there are certainly issues in the caucus format, but this particular example seems more like a mole hill than a mountain.
@Stephen Spang In calculating the number needed for viability, the rule is to always round up.
2
Maybe this tells us something important about the state of understanding of basic skills in computation in our country. The alarm is sounded year after year based on national tests. Numerous workers across the state made multiple errors. Are we really surprised?
69
@LoveLife
Mostly it tells us that humans make mistakes. Why would that be a surprise?
17
@Cfiverson
It doesn't surprise you that grown people who have at least graduated middle school can't do basic arithmetic on their calculators and follow instructions?
14
@LoveLife
The errors are not really the problem here.
The entire metric used for determining the winner (State Delegate Equivalents) is bogus. It's just part of an inherently corrupt and undemocratic process. We need to look at how skewed county convention delegates (used to calculate SDEs) were apportioned this year in relation to where the different candidates had their Town Halls and concentrated their campaign efforts. This is classic insider politics (presumably including both the democratic party and mainstream media). What is different from banana republics is that here patronage gifts only come in the form of political representation, regional economic change and specific government programs; I doubt money is actually transferred to bank accounts. I come from an Irish American family from the south side of Chicago (with relatives in Iowa and in the party there). Patronage is the way it works.
3
Well I think we've seen enough to be able to decide that caucuses should go the way of the dodo bird. Whatever the reasons for them originally cannot be valid in this day and age of high speed travel and communications. It's time to adopt primaries for all states, and consolidate them into balanced cross sections of the country to be held in three or four "primary days" to eliminate the artificial outsized influence of the early voting states.
And while we're at it, let's adopt public funding for ALL candidates, and outlaw outside or even personal financing of campaigns so that all candidates are on equal footing.
If the past four years have shown us anything, it's that our democracy is broken and needs significant overhauling.
206
I disagree and not because I live in Iowa. A caucus is a great opportunity for people to meet with candidate in an intensive way at relatively low cost (to the candidates). It offers candidates to get away from polls, strategists, staffers, and actually meet the electorate. It isn't necessary for the results to stand mathematical scrutiny. The number of delegates that Iowa sends to national bodies who determines the eventual party candidate is small. This year, despite the gaffes, the Iowa caucus corrected showed the weakness of Biden ... someone who at one time was seen as the leading candidate ... and the unexpected strength of Buttiegeg. Klobuchar's surprising finish in New Hampshire was predictable by her rising popularity as the Iowa Caucus came down to its last days. The Caucus results should be seen as an early qualitative measure. It's not necessary to get the count sufficiently precise to discriminate 0.1% margins. Our national elections fail there too. Whether Iowa will retain its place at the head of the Democratic process to select its candidate is now problematic. Perhaps that is a position that should rotate from election to election. But a process like the caucus, one that is inexpensive, produces qualitative results, and involves grassroot participation rather than professional involvement is a good thing for our democracy.
7
@mce Let's be clear that we Iowans get to meet with the candidates during the campaign that precedes the actual caucus night: that opportunity is a function of the Iowa caucus being the first indication of voter preference in the primary season.
11
@mce I don't see how any of that has to do with the fact that it's a caucus - that's just the privilege of going first, at the expense of everyone else.
18
On the plus side, there's a paper trail to examine.
77
@kauff But if the Iowa Democratic Party is going to insist on holding to those original worksheets with obvious errors, what good is a paper trail?
24
and no hang-able chads
3
@kauff
This is the first time they used paper again. Which demonstrates how important it is.
7
At the end of the day this is relatively simple math, but its simple math that is carried out by under or untrained volunteers in a busy environment in a high stakes situation where numerous scenarios can lead to the application of arcane rules of which no volunteer can reasonably be expected to have mastery. This is not their fault.
This is the Iowa Democratic Party's fault for failure to train, failure to have party staff available to assist, and failure to design a process capable of minimizing human error. They've taken being first for granted and have approached that responsibility with laziness and neglect.
These simple errors in organizing could be excused if Iowa was an important state in Democratic politics. But, it isn't. It's too rural, too white, and runs a caucus designed explicitly to produce skewed results by leaving out busy parents, working folks, those with disabilities, and others that cannot bear the burden of spending hours on a process that should reasonably take minutes.
Iowa cannot go first any longer. We must recognize caucuses are undemocratic in modern times, and the national party must work to ensure that the diverse base of the party is involved in the important role of 'being first.'
156
@Kyle It becomes much simpler, too, if they handle the math centrally. Precinct reports the first and final tabulation, delegates are awarded via consistent math in a central office. Much easier than having to train hundreds of precinct captains on the math that goes into the delegate counts.
19
The caucus system is a nightmare. We need one consistent set of primary voting rules, applied the same way throughout the country. Paper ballots. Ranking voting is great. Allowing vote by mail -- as in Oregon and Washington -- would be idea.
The whole crazy electoral-college type system of delegates is flawed -- both for the primary and general election. One person, one vote. It should not be possible to lose the popular vote and win the delegates.
12
Caucuses are innately unfair.
Only people who were free for several hours on a school night could take part in the Iowa caucus. People working evening shifts at McDonalds or Target or Rite-Aid, people with little children who can't afford a babysitter, people who no longer drive at night - none of these could vote.
The Nevada caucus in 2016 was held on a Saturday afternoon, which may sound better if you don't know that 50% of Las Vegas employees work on Saturday.
The fact that some states, including Nevada, have only recently moved from Primaries to Caucuses would seem to be deliberate effort to disenfranchise the working class.
13
"What’s wrong The Iowa caucuses happen over two rounds of voting. People may leave after the first round, but there should not be more people voting in the final round than in the first.
In more than 600 precincts, the vote totals did not match perfectly, and in 79 the final round votes were higher. "
If this is not an example of some type of "Voter Fraud" then corn does not grow in Iowa.
If Democrats will not acknowledge this issue is an example of fraud, then the political system will remain broken despite what Democrats say.
5
@MDCooks8
Fraud, by definition, requires intent to deceive...
This is ineptitude at it's finest, where mistakes are magnified and propagated by an obtuse system of counting votes.
There's no corn growing in Iowa... it's winter.
2
@JT You are so right!
Did they factor in the phase of the Moon and the likelihood of the Hawkeyes getting to the NCAA tournament?
A lot of places have people vote using paper and then count the ballots after everybody has voted.
We can also use a computer, but a paper trail of actual ballots filled out, not summaries, is essential.
For this, every serious presidential candidate has to spend months in your state trying to pretend they are Iowan?
The end conclusion of this whole fiasco should be that caucuses are outdated, undemocratic, and that ranked-choice voting is a pretty good idea.
3
Democracy is a funny thing; while it may be "the worst form of government except for all others", it should always be kept in mind that 50% +1 does not bestow anything on a political side except an agreed legitimacy. It has also long been manifest that, even if necessary for a good government, it is far from sufficient; rule of law and equality before such law, among other things, being needed to make it more than a mere comforting fetish.
The reality is that all voting systems have some small built-in inaccuracy. It may be a few thousand likely incorrect votes in a badly designed ballot, it may be a few "hanging chads" here and there that add up. In addition, there are the characteristics of the human mind that have show significant effects from totally extraneous things (ballot order, length or oddness of name) that are so reliable as to strongly suggest many, many voters make entirely capricious choices in the ballot box.
None of what is in this story is surprising, especially when one considers the complexity of the process. The search for the Holy Grail of who was the real choice of the voters is doomed to fail for the reasons intrinsic to all voting. What is surprising is the amount of angst exhibited about a very few delegates from a small (in population), atypical state at a time when the field still has a lot of winnowing to happen.
1
If it had not been for the Bernie Sanders campaign demanding more transparency after 2016, this whole sorry mess would have been hidden once again.
Think what you like about Medicare for All. It’s Democracy for All that matters now.
9
A degree of transparency exposed the underlying fraud that has been baked into our voting systems all along.
Since its inception our country has been teaching and living the lie that we live under a fair Democracy.
It's long overdue that these voodoo systems that allow these kinds of errors be changed to a one person - one vote, audited tally.
8
In your "Too many delegates awarded: 8 precincts," you write "Since Mr. Biden and Mr. Sanders were tied in the final alignment but both were viable, it should have come down to a coin toss over whose supporters should move to another viable candidate. Support for one of these candidates is overstated in the final results, but we can’t know which." But Sanders only had 2 votes in round one -- should not have even made it to round 2, because he didn't meet the viability criterion.
Similar issue in "Candidates without enough supporters won delegates: 21 precincts": you highlight Biden as not meeting the viability threshold of 6 votes, but Steyer is even more glaring, only receiving 3 in round one, yet making it to round 2 and gaining a delegate. Clearly in this precinct only Sanders and Warren were viable and should have split all the delegates.
I caucused this year and while overall it was a smooth process in my location, it was almost impossible to hear our precinct chair because there was no microphone. There was nowhere to sit unless you brought your own chair. Accessibility is a real issue in many respects, and that doesn't even get into the ridiculous math involved.
4
Nullify this caucus. The results are too suspect.
Perform a real primary vote in Iowa after everyone else in the country has voted.
Stay last from now on.
It is really sad how much money has been squandered in vain in Iowa.
4
Is there anything left we can do to ensure the average voter has no faith in electoral politics? The American efforts are almost as ambitious as the Russian ones...
5
Caucuses are a means by which the politically active disenfranchise the politically less active or inactive (both of whom deserve the right to vote). The fact that I’m busy or already decided, doesn’t mean I need to give up my vote. It’s a disgrace, as is Iowa (1% of US pop.) and New Hampshire (0.5% of US pop.)having any effect on the choice for president. It would be a joke if it wasn’t exponentially important. My county in NY has a greater population than both states combined. End this joke, please.
6
For those who decry the danger of electronic voting, just look at how much more accurate and reliable is the "paper and pencil" alternative.
@James K Griffin yes, but with pen and paper, we can see at least see that it’s fraudulent. Electronic covers that up pretty effectively!
2
Mix a very complicated process with hand counts and you have a guarantee of errors. I have hand counted votes and the changes you can get from one count to the next are amazing. Maybe people changed whether they held their hands up and maybe I counted wrong. But the outcome was the same.
No one should take a close caucus result seriously.
1
All anyone had to do was watch C-SPAN and you could see live the first round voting was simply to determine if a candidate had enough supporters to be viable. Nobody cared once a candidate had over 50 in the West Des Moines precinct that was live without interruption for at least 1 1/2 hours. This story is only news to people and reporters that never witnessed a previous Iowa caucus. It’s a shame the reporters are so inexperienced. It’s a caucus remember, it’s not meant to be anything else.
1
Everything NYT has described here indicate that all of the errors were human errors in properly recording the vote. Allow I have not seen the application in use, I would suspect that there was nothing "wrong" with the application. Properly designed, it would not "accept" some of the data ( the mistakes made by humans). This is not a "bug", it is a feature. Technology can't function correctly if the inputs are not what the algorithm(s) are looking for. That's why you see the "error" message folks.
Having worked in the technology business, I sure would like to know if there were other sins being committed by the software, or was this just another example of "garbage in, garbage out."
And so one of the least representative states, with a total population that's about 1/3 of that in New York City continues to sow consternation about the voting process. Could this be more pointless. It's time to overhaul the primary process, shorten the season and put all these cornpone elements of past notions of democracy to bed. There is one vote that counts and that is the national election. All I want is one relatively sane, morally reasonable candidate, without mud spattered all over them to run against Trump. Too much dithering, too much tire kicking and I'm already burnt out on the process and it's still almost a year away. Bah, we get what we deserve.
1
Absolutely ridicules at every turn, and the turnout was diminished compared to last cycle signaling a deserved slow death. It is time every precinct nation wide adopt a uniform procedure. Preferably vote by mail like Oregon and a few other states. Works great, paper ballot, and decent period of time for voters to execute. Not to mention greater turnout
It's just astounding to what lengths people go in this country to prop up a ridiculously antiquated, unusable and unrepresentative system. what's wrong with a simple one person one vote? It works on any level, and gives immediate results. We don't live in the 18th century any more.
4
The errors must be maintained because they are on legal documents? That's a miscarriage of justice. Negating a person's vote is illegal, yet that is what they decided they have the right to do.
6
This is what happens when you aren't smart enough to use your critical thinking skills and you purchase an APP from a little known company as well as not bothering to train caucus volunteers about both the APP and the new method for counting the votes instituted this year by the DNC. The Iowa DNC head failed.
There was also no Plan B in case the App didn't work so the phone lines were not covered with appropriate staff. The phones were also jammed by Trump supporters so calls could not go through with counts.
I would actually be curious about this full list as a Temp Chair and as a member of the SCC for the state party
Am I the only one who finds it disturbing that the state party thinks leaving the results incorrect is proper?
9
Bernie wants to take over the power grid and the healthcare system.
If you ever wondered why millions starve in communist countries and the power won't stay on, here is your answer.
@Tim
Are you this hard on government highways, water, sewer, etc?
Millions starve in the US... and we give them food stamps.... a big government program that provides for the poor.
3
@Tim What does this have to do with the article? Please, take it somewhere else.
6
I have never seen the caucus process first-hand, but this year I was on the treadmill at the gym watching CNN where they had a camera in a caucus room while it was going on. I literally whispered, "What on earth is going on?!"
This blows my mind. Not because I don't understand, but because I can't figure out why would anyone make a simple process soooooooooooo convoluted.
8
I was a precinct captain for Warren and reported results to her campaign via an app that worked perfectly.
Every other captain was jealous of my app. It was as simple as punching the numbers in and submitting. Did all of the hard work for me and I was able to easily double-check the math on the worksheet. Just sayin'. She has a plan for everything!
3
Great job Iowa, from the way it looks you guys want Trump to win because nobody from the democratic party can truly claim anything.
1
If the IDP is not going to permit the numbers to be changed when it's very clear that the worksheets are error-ridden, and when impossible results (more votes in the final round than the first alignment), then the DNC should disallow Iowa's results and invalidate the score. Nothing else is fair or acceptable.
I read today of the DNC's involvement in the development of the app. The DNC was written into the contract between Shadow and the IDP. “Consultant agrees to work with the DNC Services Corporation / Democratic National Committee (‘DNC’) on an on-going basis as Consultant develops the software,” and agrees to “provide DNC continual access to review the Consultant’s system configurations, security and system logs, system designs, data flow designs, security controls (preventative and detective), and operational plans for how the Consultant will use and run the Software for informational dissemination, pre-registration, tabulation, and reporting throughout the caucus process.” There's a Scribd doc of the contract, with a lot of redaction.
To me, this means the DNC needs to step up and own this mess, and as I said, invalidate the results from Iowa.
7
"complicated calculation"---that is when you know we are mathematically illiterate. Basic arithmatic is not complicated.
3
The DNC was intimately involved in developing the Iowa caucus App and now trying to distance itself from the mess according to Huffington Post.
While the Democratic National Committee over the last 10 days has tried to distance itself from the troubled app that through the results of the Iowa caucus into disarray, a copy of the contract and internal correspondence provided to Yahoo News demonstrates that national party officials had extensive oversight over the development of the technology.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/iowa-caucus-app-dnc-democrats_n_5e45d832c5b64433c6138ac6
6
@Jacquie
The DNC is corrupt. Fire the chair and void the committee assignments he made and replace him with someone honest and impartial.
2
This is absurd and inexcusable in 2020, especially with the most corrupt and dangerous President in history and his party of enablers laying in wait for the Democratic candidate.
Absolutely inexcusable incompetence.
6
So, is the Times going to publish their own recanvasing data? Given all the conspiracy theories floating around, having an independent source look through the data would seem valuable, regardless of where one stands politically.
1
Nice work, NYT. Great info and analysis.
This caucus system is the dumbest, and most needlessly complex, voting regime in the U.S. The entire thing should be scrapped. Replace with a simple primary, run by state election officials, using scantron-like ballots for the paper backup. This is how most other states run their elections.
The Iowa caucuses are a Norman Rockwell ideal in a CGI world. They’re exclusionary, geared toward people without school-aged children, second-shift jobs, or transportation difficulties.
It’s time for Iowa to enter the modern world with a secret ballot, allow absentee voting, and find a way to count the results that doesn’t involve an app.
1
I have been a poll worker and none of this surprises me. You hold a hugely complex and critically important one-day event once every two or four years, and expect a bunch of low paid or volunteer civilians to pull the thing off without making mistakes. It can't be done.
65
I get the two-round voting to narrow down the field, but why the delegates? The delegate system is a throwback to the 18th century, when you had to send such delegates to a a regional (or national) capital to then vote in a that centralized location. It was a way of transmitting a summary of the votes and being sure of what happened next in an election. But back then you could only travel about 30 miles a day. Now that original voting information can be sent in less than a second. Iowa, and the US, needs to catch up with the 21st century.
9
@Malcolm Yes, delegates in Iowa have to travel to county conventions to cast the votes for their candidate, followed by district conventions and the state convention.
And Iowa is supposed to have pretty good school systems across the state. If this happens in a state with schools considered good, it's alarming to think what results would come if this caucus system were held in states with marginal school systems. There are a lot of states like that. Kids may ask, "why do we need math?" Answer is that someday you may have to tally up a caucus. Scary to think how that will go.
14
No doubt these errors plagued the Iowa caucuses in 2016 and before as well. The only reason they are apparent this time is this is the first time Iowa has released the raw data to show just how unreliable their system is. It is time to end caucuses and end Iowa's first in the nation importance.
103
@Rrichman You can thank Bernie and his supporters for pushing for rules changes and transparency in the process
13
I understand the critiques of the caucus system by those who live outside Iowa. It was incredibly flawed this year (and perhaps years in the past); with the accessibility of technology, there should have been competent people organizing the work.
However, the system of caucuses allows for a community of people to come together to talk about politics and to have open discussion about issues that matter most to them. In essence, it assumes that people can change their mind and come to agreements by way of discussion. This is an incredibly democratic and inclusive process when so much of the political system is the opposite.
Suggestions for organizational improvement are completely just; however, I suggest you attend a caucus before you suggest that Iowa stop using this system altogether.
7
@Ella
What the system of caucuses allows for is very nice, and would probably be a positive thing for democracy as a stand-alone event. But its a downright lousy way to primary and its design is just plain anti-democratic: Exclusive by virtue of its limit to one, long, specific evening in which those luck enough to participate blindly trust a non-expert stranger to do on-site complex calculations without ballots to back them up, all in an environment of electioneering. Its a process that flies in the face of all the rules we've put into place to make sure our elections are fair.
27
@Kathleen Breen This is exactly the point -- Caucuses ARE NOT Primaries. Caucuses are a way for members of a political party to come together, discuss preferences, and select local delegates to a county convention. It's NOT an election, but rather more comparable to a sophisticated poll. The results are indicators of preference, not votes.
5
@Kathleen Breen ...And by 'fair' you do you mean 'favorable to the progressive-minded people living in big cities on the coasts'? Just curious.
1
With all the vagaries of this caucus system, it's clear that those doing the math can take advantage of their own candidate leanings, as was shown in two amateur phone videos from the Iowa caucus. For that reason alone, and in both cases it added delegates to Buttigieg, there should be no more caucuses in the US. I'm not saying that some people wouldn't be honest (likely the earnest Bernie supporters, IMO), but those who are scrambling to get their candidate elected are ripe for cheating or bending the rules.
13
@SPK The math is reviewed and signed off by representatives from each candidate. This is why the party views the worksheets as legal documents. Yes, errors are possible, but the process is transparent and participatory. And, perhaps most importantly: A CAUCUS is NOT an ELECTION. It is a sophisticated preference poll and method for a political party to select local delegates to a county convention. Iowa DOES also have a primary election -- it happens in June.
3
@Mary M
This may be important for state party dynamics. But the predetermination of country convention delegates and the highly-dependent assignment of state delegate equivalents helps determine the absolute WINNER of the caucus, according to the national media and the political campaigns - and this greatly effects the nomination process for the entire country, of course.
6
Still not telling the full story--when accounting for all these errors--the net benefit of them went to Mayor Pete....
people have been modeling this.
48
@Johnny Come Lately The full story is the DNC was intimately involved in this mess and are now trying to distance themselves from the Iowa DNC.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/iowa-caucus-app-dnc-democrats_n_5e45d832c5b64433c6138ac6
8
@Johnny Come Lately not in most cases. There are plenty more that show that Pete would pick up 14 and Sanders would pick up almost 6 when all the math is done.
1
@Johnny Come Lately How can you know? These were only isolated examples out of hundreds. That's an incredible insight you have into the errors of every precinct, which no one else seems to have - even if turns out to be correct, there's no evidence to assert it right now. Conspiracy theories do not serve us well.
2
Throw it out. No one is going to trust the results at this point. If you can't run a caucus properly, then it's void. Also, not really fair that Buttigieg had free reign to tramp about Iowa stumping while Sanders and Warren were tied up in traitor Trump trial.
29
@RCJCHC
Do remember that Sanders and Warren were not the only candidates "tied up" in the Senate. Still, your recommendation to throw out the results has merit.
3
This is what happens when former Hillary Clinton aides decide to start writing software......
I cannot believe the Democrat Party decided to rely on a new company run by someone who had never written or managed software products before.
unbelievable. really.
75
@Michael
Yes, it's always Hillary for those of you who still are whining about the 2016 election that your candidate won. And it's the Democratic Party - you gave yourself away.
8
Makes one wonder how accurate the 2016 caucus was . . .
45
@michael
That is the reason Sanders asked to have greater (as in any) transparency. Turns out, Iowa never counted to begin with. A hundred years of results are in question. Not sad. Incompetent.
13
This article failed to mention that no one is permitted to caucus who does not arrive at the location in a horse-drawn buggy.
37
@Steve My wife pointed out that the Amish don’t vote.
To recap: In Iowa, volunteers use hand-scrawled worksheets and/or an unproven, insecure app to calculate complex formulas adhering to arcane but incomplete rules. Later, a different person inputs this data into a computer and neither that person nor anyone else cross-checks for errors or discrepancies.
Remind me why they get to go first?
53
@Jewel
HINT: for the same all corruption happens: CASH.
("Economic development" is the phrase Giuliani uses.)
The real question that everyone wants to know is: when can we start blaming the Russians on this?
14
Bernie won Iowa; Bernie won NH. And all the fuzzy math put out by the so called "respectable" media outlets like you can't change that. Cry, whine, accuse all you want; people are hungry for change, and we found it in one candidate. Bernie. Keep scratching you heads while Americans take back their country.
73
@Michael ---If Bernie Sanders is the nominee, get ready for four more years of Trump. Bernie can't win. He's a self-righteous ideologue whose claim to fame is that he's been a self-righteous ideologue with the same message for 40 years. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." That describes Mr. Sanders. He's already lost Pennsylvania with his promise to eliminate thousands of fracking jobs, and Florida Jews with his support for Palestinians. Both noble causes, both guaranteed electoral losers.
6
@Michael With respect, how do you know that Bernie won Iowa? With the errors reported here, I am not sure we will ever know.
10
@Michael
And given the inherent error factor in American elections, you can just as easily say no one won either state. Both results were well within the margin of error created by our flawed election systems.
4
Thanks for sharing the work sheets... though the New York Times also seems to have made a mistake when checking for mistakes!
In Black Hawk County, Tom Steyer was also not viable (3 backers in the first alignment), in addition to Joe Biden (5).
A simple solution to this whole mess organize a simple primary. And pick a different state to go first for a change!
21
Awww, c'mon folks. This ain't "complex math", it's arithmetic! You know, what we learned in grade school and junior high.
10
@Bill for some of us all math is complex. That’s why it’s probably not a great idea to depend on volunteers to get it right.
1
@Bill I agree. And I don't think the pressure, confusion, etc. of the situation should have caused the volunteers to bungle it up if they had chosen people who were comfortable with math or at least had the numbers cross-checked by them. In medicine we do math at the bedside sometimes to figure out dosing, etc. (hardly a low-pressure situation) but it is also checked by another person often (e.g. another nurse, pharmacist, etc.)
What this illustrates to me is a) people's inability to admit they are uncomfortable/ not clear about instructions (which is why I often repeat instructions 3 times with patients when I can and in oral/ written forms) and b) lack of math skills. For the latter, it's especially bad when say a cash register does not work and the person behind the counter has to find a calculator to do really simple math. Often times, my family and I find ourselves telling that person what the change should be after doing the math in our heads.
1
I am voting in Nevada Feb 22, and after the Iowa fiasco,
reviewed the rules closely. I am not sure that all of the checks in this article are themselves correct.
For example: Per Nevada caucus rules, any candidate with viability GETS a delegate, even if this means that an extra delegate has to be given to a precinct. In this article's example of "too many delegates awarded," the graph shows that there were "3 votes needed for viability" and "3 county delegates to allocate." Four candidates were viable with 3 or more votes. Per Nevada rules, if a candidate is viable, he/she MUST get a delegate, so the precinct is allocated an extra one and it is given to the extra viable candidate.
Iowa rules may differ, but this seems like an "error" that might actually be correct procedure according to the rules for giving delegates to viable candidates.
It is also the case that moving from the final alignment total TO the awarded delegates is based on a multiplication calculation which does not yield whole numbers! So a final number might be "5.6" which would round UP to 6, so if 6 were needed for viability, that decimal would end up giving the candidate viability.
This does not change the fact that "caucus math" is ridiculous. See the information under "Caucus Math" here: https://nvdems.com/delegate-selection-and-caucus-materials/
4
Reading this was just incredibly disappointing. How can something so simple can be messed up this bad?!!
5
I'm surprised that Pat Paulson didn't win any delegates...
8
Bless my home state!
2
The mantra of the Democratic party in 2024, "We shall caucus no more."
1
Ok. So it's broken.
Who actually won though?
3
@Duran Goodyear Statistically, it is impossible to tell. Or to ever tell. The margin of error is larger than the difference between the candidates.
1
Well, wow.
Maybe the Democratic Party needs to void the Iowa result, ban this barn dance way of choosing a president, make them all vote by paper ballot and assign delegates by win. You know, like everybody else does
It's, wow. I thought Mexican elections were bad.
Playing musical chairs, then yelling for people to come stand with you and abandon their choice, then handwriting results, and messing up the data entry and asking grandpa to log on to an app and giving the delegate to the guy with decimals closet to 0.50 (no matter if one has 2.22 and the other has 1.45), and ... just wow. My head is spinning just trying to follow this .. this … not even sure how to call it.
2020 people! Iowa seems to be in the 1800’s. But then again is Iowa, which in the grand scheme should not have a say on this other than awarding their few delegates.
I have my popcorn ready for Nevada when the hoedown at the barn will repeat. This time however it will matter as this is one state that closest reflects most of the USA.
Amazing this is the party who wants to take over the country, they can’t even add.
12
@AutumnLeaf
It's literally 100% corruption.
EX:
Hillary said that, even if Trump's election could be proven bogus and fraudulent, there was "no mechanism" to fix it. Childish lie. Um, you do the election AGAIN, with more security. It's that simple and has been done many times before all over the world. (That's WHY they would not permit a 2nd brexit vote. They knew Brexit would lose this time.)
3
1. Fairness
Your article didn't comment on the undemocratic relationship between votes casts and delegates allocated. According to your figures, in Precinct WK3, Dallas County, it took 36 votes for each delegate. In Precinct CR, Webster County, it took only 5 votes for each delegate. How is that even remotely fair??
2. Arithmetic
Obviously, proficiency in mathematics is not a requirement for those charged with managing a caucus. It is clear that several fundamental rules (usually taught in grade school) were not followed by those who designed the worksheet, and by those who completed them:
a. Show your work.
b. Double check your work.
c. When computing decimal fractions, specify the number of decimal places in the answer.
d. To minimize systematic errors, when the sum of the rounded addends does not equal the sum of the un-rounded addends, adjust the largest rounded addend.
11
@John Kell I believe the differing number of delegates is not an issue, as the delegates are sent to county conventions which determine the actual delegates at the state level.
4
So, no more Iowa caucuses. It is an arcane and imprecise way to elect a presidential candidate, and Iowa does not even come close to reflecting our electorate. Also, this article confirms my belief that Americans have a big problem with math. This is an issue that has far reaching consequences.
9
This most likely happens for every Iowa caucus but it's only surfacing and getting visibility as a peripheral spectacle to the app disaster.
22
This shows how idiotic caucuses can be. Wouldn't switching to a primary with a rank-choice paper ballot work better and satisfy the democratic tradition of a caucus?
33
@KP
that's like saying "our Prison system / CORRECTIONAL facilities not only don't correct anyone.... they always make the person MORE criminal and more SEVERE a criminal! And THEN they release them back into society!"
Um... that's the whole point!
If they stop crime, a million cops / judges / lawyers / reporters / jailers / etc will lose their jobs.
"Why don't they put elections on sunday instead of a workday?"
Um...that's the whole point!
To illegally suppress the vote.
3
Pathetic, just pathetic. Hard to believe that people in 2020 can still use a system from 19th century. Did they add everything with an abacus?
15
@Irate citizen If they used an abacus, it probably would've been correct!
6
I'm sure this process got more complicated than usual with all these candidates. If they have paper ballots for each alignment, they should be able to re count by hand by now. They probably messed up the last elections results, but there were less people, and it conformed to the polling so nobody looked in to it. I think it is a great lesson for everyone that there should be a paper ballot act in the US since the technology is so easily compromised. As along as the state parties run their own primaries, there is going to be a certain level of unprofessionalism since it's all volunteers.
4
One inaccuracy I see in this analysis is the Statement about Waterloo. No one is forced to realign. If an individual likes only 1 candidate and that candidate is not viable, they are under no obligation to realign to a viable candidate. In my caucus this happened with several individuals. They left, whether they filled out the 2nd choice with the same candidate or left it blank I do not know. However, I am overall glad about the analysis and it is disheartening to understand that there is at a minimum 26% inaccuracy.
8
I was early this year getting my taxes done. The first question is, as it has been for years, do you want $3 to go to the Presidential election fund. And as always, my tax preparer skips over this question because their default answer is 'no', and I have to tell them to check the box for 'yes'. If I thought that $100 - even if it's above and beyond what I owe the feds and the state - would result in improved efficiency and less 'you owe me' type attempts to influence the result, I'd gladly pay it.
If I attempted to send a $1.00 check to someone as badly written as these raw data forms, the bank would return the check to me. How can we elect a president like this?
10
It's lame to leave calculations to 1700 precinct captains - there will be mistakes in any group that large, no matter how experienced. Should have just sent raw numbers in and have them all calculated on one computer - either everything or nothing will be in error, easy problem to spot and fix.
5
@Chris W. Or, if they had adequately tested the app and trained extensively on it, each smart phone could go the calculations. In the server-centric world of computing today, there is rarely ever such a thing as a central computer.
2
@Chris W. Another great idea.
@Bert Right - just one application to do the calculations.
I hadn't realized that Iowa had never previously disclosed the popular vote. Hmm. Are Iowa and ethanol comparable to the Astros and the world series? Maybe the punishment should be to remove ethanol from our fuel so as to make our lawn mowers great again.
8
One basic problem is that the Chair of each individual caucus is selected that night, so there's no way to have trained them to use the app beforehand.
It was my first caucus. I was stunned by the chaos and confusion. This is NOT the way to select a nominee.
Historically, the caucuses were a gathering of well-informed party members. They would gather in small groups to persuade and discuss the candidates and hopefully a caucus would unanimously agree. These weren't intended to be gatherings where people got bused in and campaigns trolled the crowd looking for lost or undecided bodies. That seems to be what it morphed into, and it doesn't work.
Please Iowa, don't do this again.
27
This is why paper ballots are so critical, and why all anonymous cast ballots should be public records, along with all the paperwork and calculations used to generate results. This is why the paper really should be copied, and the copies digitally signed, before it leaves the precinct.
Computers are great. Voting needs paper.
14
This is partially an indictment of the US educational system (we cannot do basic math) and fully an indictment of lack of leadership because the volunteer were not properly trained and tested
3
Rather interesting that some Lawyer, not a Judge,
decided that obvious errors in the Caucus Tallying
could not noted and corrected.
Iowa, let us get it right.
Have you Caucuses and then give each person a ballot
with 3 ranked choices to drop off as you leave to go home.
Add those Precinct results up.
Call the results into your County.
Have the Country call the State.
Results should be in by Midnight.
3
Nice try. But if you want to convey the problems with the Iowa Caucus, you would need to explain what the rules are that were violated and use column headings whose meanings are clear. UNLIKE "First Alignment" and "Final Alignment."
Are you seriously unaware that the word "alignment" as used here has a meaning different from what almost all non-Iowans are familiar with? Seriously?
4
@polymath Your point on "alignment" is confusing--that is the term used in the caucuses.
I think Jeff Weaver from the Sanders campaign had it right when he said on caucus night when officials complained about the complicated process of showing the raw vote that they probably delivered wrong results for the past 100 years.
It is just ridiculous to have this unwieldy system, that Iowans cling to it as if it were their due, to be unable to calculate correctly and therefore have "fuzziness" when an election is about clarity and exact numbers, and then, when finally a campaign demands to see the wrong numbers, it is revealed that they don't even know what they are doing.
And then they think giving these seniors an app that they weren't trained on (aside from all that notoriously goes wrong with apps under the best of circumstances) will speed up the process of getting in the results. What's the rush when the underlying math doesn't add up?
And THEN the arrogance of the judge to rule that results an't be changed once they have been certified by the election official, another person who obviously can't be bothered to figure out the math behind it.
Remind me to never move to Iowa where the election process is quaint and the officials are incompetent.
28
Based on this (first ever?) analysis of the IA caucus, it seems almost certain that these types of errors have occurred, unnoticed, for a long time. A procedure that is too complicated for its users to implement correctly is a terrible system.
Changing these baroque processes to a primary (ranked choice, ideally) would be simpler, fairer, more inclusive, and easier to execute.
18
My thanks to Collins, Lu, and Smart for doing the math, great work! I agree with a previous commenter that the use of a spreadsheet would have eliminated many of these problems (but not those involving data entry). I don't agree that a bright 8-year old could have done the math. The analysis shows that the rules for delegate allocation can be quite complex, for example: "The caucus guide says that an additional delegate should be awarded to the candidate whose unrounded delegate count is closest to 0.5 in the decimal place." That qualifies as arcane.
Of what does this remind me? My taxes, which I'm working on right now. Pages and pages of arcane rules, courtesy of a congress that, for decades, has pandered to every interest group.
What's the solution? I'd say that for primaries the answer is 'ranked voting' (with a paper ballot capable of computer tabulation). Elections could be held state-by-state on a staggered schedule determined by lottery, so that the field can still be narrowed.
The framers created an amendment process for a reason. They did not anticipate political parties (Washington warned against them), but we have them. We need a system of national voting in which everyone's note counts.... and, while we're at it, let's fix the broken tax system...
18
Iowa should never go first again. Its lack of diversity alone should be disqualifying, let alone this horrific mess of tabulating the results.
I've heard some Democrats blame Bernie Sanders because his campaign requested greater transparency and thoroughness in reporting results. It's not Sanders' or anyone else's fault that the Iowa Democratic Party totally bungled this, and the DNC failed to offer meaningful help before or after the caucus.
It's thanks to Bernie that we know how broken this caucus process truly is. Time for one person, one vote, on paper.
"But this is the first year that Iowa Democrats released raw vote counts. The transparency provided the public with its first opportunity to check the complex math that determines which candidates get the delegates they need to win the Democratic nomination. And in many cases, the math did not check out."
135
@Anne
Let's be fair here. It's not thanks to Bernie that we know how broken this caucus process truly is. It is thanks to the New York Times extensive investigations and publishing their findings.
10
@Kate
To be fair here; after the '16 Dem. Primary, Sanders raised the issue; asking for transparency, ie. first and second counts.
This primary most candidates/campaigns had onsite observers and in a few cases attorneys present. They took pictures of the actual tabulations/results in real time and some had their own working aps also.
Thus Pete was able to declare victory without any numbers even being posted according to his campaign. Also Sanders campaign was able to immediately question results in real time as they were released. People who worked the caucuses noticed improper numbers being displayed quickly, as did the Twitter folk who made it viral. THEN the NYT et al latched upon the problems. Many of us knew about the discrepancies days before the NYT published an accounting; to be fair.
17
It's the year 2020 right? How is it voting and caucuses are getting MORE complicated and mistake fraught? Unless it's that "certain"people just don't want them to be secure, so they can fudge results as need be. And that app, even used correctly, was incredibly prone to hacking it's been found. How is it no one had it checked out ahead of time? So maybe it's a good thing this little episode happened, at least we got rid of that app that might have gone ahead and given false results in the rest of the states and no one would have been the wiser.
15
Missing from the analysis: Some people went home after the 1st alignment, most likely because their candidate did not qualify. This has nothing to do with "confusing" rules, but instead with natural human nature. The result of this would be numbers that do not "add up". I counter that is all makes sense.
2
@Dave That's not "missing from the analysis" at all. In fact it is mentioned explicitly: "The Iowa caucuses happen over two rounds of voting. People may leave after the first round, but there should not be more people voting in the final round than in the first."
There are also a number of specific issues detailed in the article.
27
@Dave How does that explain an increase in voter total in the final round or too many/few delegates awarded to candidates?
8
@Dave - people leaving after the first alignment should result in fewer votes in the 2nd alignment, not vice versa. Read the article.
17
My head is still spinning after trying to make sense of this arcane process. Perhaps it's time to ditch the caucus altogether. If states don't want to implement a more standard voting procedure, they should be moved down the primary calendar.
30
Looking forward to a full analysis showing just exactly how many delegates were awarded or withheld from each candidate. Thank you!
21
Just have the candidates return to Iowa and have them play musical chairs. In fact, if we just use musical chairs or the hokey pokey to solve our political battles we can get dark money out of the elections entirely. Could Putin or anyone else interfere in a good, old fashioned, all-American style cake walk? I think not.
4
Forget the apps, the sheets (1700 locations with untrained volunteers, always will be errors). No caucuses. Period. They are undemocratic (only about 10% participate), don't have a secret ballot (friends and employers can pressure your public vote), discriminate against people with night jobs, family and care responsibilities, and disabilities. Caucuses are undemocratic. The DNC should refuse to count caucus results, everyone hold a good old primary where you count votes and report them the regular way.
77
@Rick McGahey
Caucuses are NOT Constitutional, in 500 different ways.
There. Fixed it for you!
1
It seems like there were a number of errors on viability. If the threshold is 22 how could Klobuchar advance in Dubuque county with only 16 votes? The sheet shown she should have been out and only Buttigieg, Sanders and Biden in the final round. I was watching live on TV and in First Round in one or two places they said "candidate x needs 1 more to be viable" and got someone to move. In other districts the person in charge says "the round is over, you can't change the vote to make someone viable." We will never know the true vote because individual groups went by different rules. Especially on viability.
13
Bernie won the popular vote, and the corrections, should they be taken into account, will show that Buttigieg will lose a few delegates, that Bernie might gain a couple, and most importantly, that Iowa should scrap its system and lose first-in-the-nation status.
We've been trading in a mass hallucination for decades in the Iowa caucus system.
Kudos to all involved who did the work to make this year more transparent, and thanks to the NYT people staying on top of this important analysis.
93
How can anybody expect this to work? Why do Americans hate democracy so much?
7
Democracy is hard for the people in charge to control, plain and simple.
3
Hopefully the obvious errors uncovered here and documented by this article lead to the demise of the last state caucuses. Some of these errors can't be fixed simply by looking at the math again after the fact - like a candidate being mistakenly considered viable on the first alignment or the example from Precinct WK3, Dallas County.
4
The caucuses have been a model for participatory democracy. But participation is hard to count, and I mean that literally. The alignment votes are taken by counting a group of people who are milling around in close quarters. The size of the group might change from the beginning of the count to the end.
The alignment numbers are inherently imprecise and were never intended to be the basis for choosing the overall winner. The process has its own check and balances however. The delegate totals are reported to the caucus and caucus has a chance to correct discrepancies before they are submitted.
Modern demands for accuracy and precision are perfectly legitimate. The caucus format is less precise than simple voting. But when the caucuses are gone, we will have lost a feature of democracy. Iowans, perhaps naively, believe in their legitimacy. But cynicism, perhaps unfairly, has prevailed.
9
@Kevin Caster It isn't really a one person/one vote system. The viability rules mean that people vote for someone they may not really like. Also peer pressure. The caucus system should be scrapped. Rank choice voting would be an alternative, but that has its headaches too.
5
Kevin Caster — discarding a broken system does not bespeak cynicism, just common sense.
5
It would have been easy to automate these results if someone had put formulas into an Excel spreadsheet.. A competent person could have put this together in less than one workday, then lock down the formulas, and let those at the precinct input the 1st and 2nd round votes for each candidate.
Most of the arithmetic was simple enough that a bright 8-year old could have done it.
161
@Bruce They used Google Sheets, but the Iowa state auditor supposedly did not know how it worked.
22
@Bruce Yes, what you say is true. However having sat through a caucus in Colorado, 2016, my experience was that the noise, interruptions, lack of work space and time make math and data entry very difficult.
29
@Bruce, I read that there were spreadsheets that were distributed which had incorrect formulas.
Time to replace caucuses with ranked choice voting.
18
Not sure why this or the remaining primaries/caucuses will make any difference, as it has been preordained that Mike Bloomberg will be "chosen" as the Democratic nominee.
But, whatever it takes to give the illusion that the quaint custom of involving the unwashed masses in selecting a candidate, right?
31
@Is i know. The Democratic Party has enough problems without turning against its own candidates and trying to stop Sanders or Warren from being nominated. We can’t even do math. This election is so important — we MUST end trumpism in the Whitehouse and we MUST heal the country afterward. This should be the most important objective, NOT placating big pharma and Wall Street and the billionaires and millionaires. No wonder our party is not taking to the streets in mass protest. No wonder the apathy. The party is a mess from the inside out; this makes it easy for bullies and dictators to take control.
7
@Julie
Um, do you not know both parties were literally created and funded by the same parent companies on Wall Street?
Neither one is remotely legal under current laws. But who ya gonna call? The DOJ?
1
What a perfect situation for a technology solution!
Next time around train the precincts 1 month ahead of time on the app and hold a mock caucus 2 weeks ahead of time and make sure the app works for every single person required to use it. If a caucus fails to be able to use the app send a "app liaison" to be present caucus night to help out.
I'd love to know the average age of the folks being asked to use the new app that night.
5
@Anonymous Not just middle-aged people.
1
@Alison D. The heck with apps. Paper ballots and one person one vote once only.
2
Pretty funny to think that one person/one vote, with an auditable paper record, would avoid all these potential and actual errors.
The Iowa Democratic party goes to a lot of trouble, to prevent Iowans from expressing their views.
94
What a debacle. From gerrymandering, to caucuses, to minimal automatic voter registration, to Election Day being a holiday, this country is a democracy/republic in name only. We have allowed this to happen by turning a blind eye to it and our general apathy. Our democracy is fundamentally broken and it's long overdue we start remedying it.
33
@BReed
this was no "debacle".
It went EXACTLY as planned.
Smoke bombs to hide crimes.
Confusion = looting.
HOW are all of you forgetting that 2 days before this fake "caucus", the "gold-standard" poll by the Des Moines Register [so prestigious and accurate that CNN had scheduled an hour of programming JUST about the DMR poll!]was pulled for mysterious "errors"?
[READ: it said Bernie was 20 points in the lead. Under no circumstances could they report that so they faked a cover story.]
Also, using words like "broken" suggests it wasn't all a criminal design.
(It was.)
4
This shows that the caucuses have probably always been an inaccurate mess, behind the scenes. I am so glad that this has now come to light, and we can all, forevermore, ignore caucus results. If Iowa wants to keep caucuses, I would suggest they drop the delegate part of the equation. Just have your first and then your final alignment, keep the 15% threshold, and then just report in those final votes from every precinct. That way you get a popular vote on caucus night, and none of the weird rounding error issues. But ultimately, caucuses should never be a way that we determine who should be the Presidential candidate. They are not democratic and are clearly open to bias, fraud, and error.
53
@AW So glad Washington got is going with primary now. I hated caucusing.
4
What a fabulous way to show Trump's re-election juggernaut and the American people that the Democrats mean business.
16
Just use ranked choice voting primaries! Then this can all be avoided.
97
Sounds to me like Iowa needs to redo this primary with simpler instructions. I realize that to simplify the Iowa process is no small matter and that that will take time. But other states are able to do better and it is time for Iowa to learn from the more successful and accurate state primaries.
The people of Iowa deserve to have their votes counted in an accurate manner. In fact, in a close election, the Iowa primary votes could be the deciding factor in our national primary elections.
4
The errors are simply too pervasive, and the records of individual voter preferences too incomplete, to permit any type of meaningful recount. The lesson is clear: the caucus needs to be eliminated, or at least change to the much simpler Republican model, where votes are tallied and that's it, without the multi-step process and complicated formulas. But in the short term, there is simply no way to get to a more accurate result, since any changed result will itself still be inaccurate because based on flawed and incomplete data.
65
@Roger concludes: "there is simply no way to get to a more accurate result, since any changed result will itself still be inaccurate"
There is simply no way to get to a more accurate result?
Did you read the article?
This article clearly highlighted some errors, showed the error, and fixed the error.
Doing this process for all the mistakes would clearly result in a More Accurate Result.
It might not be a perfect result...but it would clearly be a More Accurate Result.
You must be a Buttigieg supporter.
8
@John not in all cases. If numbers were recorded incorrectly (as in the case of more voters in the second alignment than the first), how can they determine the accurate number?
12
@Jewel
I am not speaking of those cases.
I am speaking of the cases that are clearly mathematical errors and and can be corrected.
Even correcting just those mistakes would still result in a "More Accurate Number" than currently exists.
Adding, subtraction, and rounding errors are not subject to opinion...even though the DNC lawyer claims otherwise.
6