The Iowa Caucus didn’t quite turn out the way people expected to, in that, as of mid-Tuesday morning, there were no results.
According to NBC News, the Iowa Democratic Party is “manually verifying all precinct results,” and said the results could be expected later Tuesday.
The delay in results was caused by tech issues and “inconsistencies” in the reporting of three sets of results, prompting caution.
The party is “validating every piece of data we have against our paper trail. That system is taking longer than expected, but it’s in place to ensure we are eventually able to report results with full confidence,” Party Chair Troy Price said.
“In addition to the tech systems being used to tabulate results, we are also using photos of results and a paper trail to validate that all results match and ensure that we have confidence and accuracy in the numbers we report,” added Mandy McClure, the Iowa Democratic Party’s communications director.
There were also apparently issues with the app used to tabulate and report results.
McClure noted that the issue was with reporting.
“The app did not go down, and this is not a hack or an intrusion. The underlying data and paper trail is sound and will simply take time to further report the results,” she said.
Of course, the confusion and the lack of any clear results prompted the Tweeter-in-Chief to zip to his phone before the sun even broke the horizon, calling the caucus “an unmitigated disaster.”
“The only person that can claim a very big victory in Iowa last night is ‘Trump,’ ” he tweeted.
And perhaps even more surprisingly, despite the confusion and lack of official results, both Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Senator Bernie Sanders came out claiming victory.
“We don’t know all the results, but we know by the time it’s all said and done, Iowa, you have shocked the nation. Because by all indications, we are going on to New Hampshire victorious,” Buttigieg said in a Monday night speech.
Meanwhile, Sanders, who had been showed as the frontrunner in most of the national polls ahead of the caucuses, released unofficial figures showing his own dominance.
