Democratic Party officials in Iowa say they can’t do a recount of Monday’s razor-thin presidential caucus results between Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders, even if they thought it was appropriate. And both candidates, in their debate later Thursday night, said it was no big deal. Just two-tenths of 1 percent separated Sanders and Clinton in the first nomination contest of the 2016 presidential campaign. The statewide caucus meetings included reports of chaos in precincts and coin flips to decide county delegates, raising questions about the final count’s accuracy . “People physically aligned in groups,” Sam Lau, the communications director for the Iowa Democratic Party, said in a statement. “There are no paper ballots to recount. Monday’s caucuses were a unique event that involved more than 171,000 Iowans and their neighbors at a specific time and place, and thus they cannot be re-created or recounted.”
In other words, there are no hanging chads to recount.
“County delegates are awarded based on Democrats who came to the caucuses on Monday who aligned and then realigned—sometimes for a different candidate than they initially supported,” Lau said. “We are working with all campaigns on individual concerns they are bringing to us, and addressing them on a case-by-case basis. Just yesterday, we met with the Sanders campaign who brought us a small amount of specific concerns, and the Clinton campaign has also asked us a small amount of questions. We will look into these concerns and reach out to our county party leadership with any questions.”
Unlike Iowa’s Republican caucuses where ballots are used, Democrats are often literally told to go stand in the corner. Their movement represents the candidate they support and delegate counts are then calculated. With all precincts reporting, Clinton was awarded 701 state delegate equivalents, compared to 697 for Sanders, according to the Associated Press.
On Thursday, the Des Moines Register—the state’s largest newspaper—used its editorial page to call for an audit following an election where Clinton apparently narrowly defeated Sanders in the closest Democratic Iowa caucuses in history.
Full Article: Iowa Democrats Say Recount Impossible in Clinton-Sanders Virtual Tie – Bloomberg Politics.
The Voting News
A News Service of the Verified Voting Foundation
