Iowa Caucus: Democratic Party Fails Its Voters

By Wednesday afternoon, we were allowed to see 92 percent of the Iowa Caucus results. That’s better than the zero percent on Election Night, and the 62 percent released late Tuesday afternoon. But the full results of the caucus — which used to be available the night of the caucus, live, on television, late in the evening, in the era before the Internet — are apparently being collated so slowly, they may or may not arrive before the next George R.R. Martin novel.

The Iowa Democratic Party was entrusted with running the first and arguably one of the most consequential contests in the presidential nominating process, and it completely fumbled, prat-falled, and metaphorically set itself on fire in the process. Not only can the state party not provide the full results, not only can they not say when they will be able provide full results, but they also cannot explain why they cannot provide full results. The unnerving possibility from this inexplicable refusal to give answers is that the party doesn’t actually know if their data are accurate and that perhaps some staff in some precincts made errors during the recording of votes.

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Jim Geraghty

Jim Geraghty is the senior political correspondent of National Review.

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By Wednesday afternoon, we were allowed to see 92 percent of the Iowa Caucus results. That’s better than the zero percent on Election Night, and the 62 percent released late Tuesday afternoon. But the full results of the caucus — which used to be available the night of the caucus, live, on television, late in the evening, in the era before the Internet — are apparently being collated so slowly, they may or may not arrive before the next George R.R. Martin novel.

The Iowa Democratic Party was entrusted with running the first and arguably one of the most consequential contests in the presidential nominating process, and it completely fumbled, prat-falled, and metaphorically set itself on fire in the process. Not only can the state party not provide the full results, not only can they not say when they will be able provide full results, but they also cannot explain why they cannot provide full results. The unnerving possibility from this inexplicable refusal to give answers is that the party doesn’t actually know if their data are accurate and that perhaps some staff in some precincts made errors during the recording of votes.