Iowa’s Republican chairman said on Saturday that the vote count from a disputed precinct had been deemed official by the Iowa Republican Party, despite multiple accounts of a vote-counting discrepancy that could potentially have made Rick Santorum the winner of the Iowa caucuses. The disputed precinct is in Appanoose County, which has already submitted its certification forms, the chairman, Matt Strawn, said in a statement to The New York Times.
“Appanoose County has submitted all its required Form E’s for all precincts in Appanoose County,” Mr. Strawn wrote in an e-mail to The Times, referring to the form by which the Republican Party of Iowa certifies its votes on a county-by-county basis. “Now that we have all the county’s forms at Iowa G.O.P. HQ for the two-week certification process, my statement from Thursday night still applies: While we will not comment on specific precinct vote totals during the two-week certification process of 1,774 precincts, the results of the Appanoose County precincts will not change the outcome of Tuesday’s vote.”
The dispute originated when a caucusgoer, Edward True, said in an affidavit that Mitt Romney had been recorded as receiving 22 votes in his precinct, called Washington Wells, when he had in fact received just two votes there on caucus night. Mr. True is a supporter of Representative Ron Paul. The Des Moines Register reported on Friday that Lyle Brinegar, the chair of the Republican Party in Appanoose County, agreed with Mr. True’s account of the vote count and disputed the total listed by the state party. A third person, Terri Haub, the precinct secretary, also agreed with Mr. True’s account, The Des Moines Register reported.
Full Article: Vote Result From Disputed Precinct Deemed Official – NYTimes.com.