PRESSURE GROWS FOR AN AUDIT OF IOWA CAUCUS RESULTS

State party chair's claim on raw vote counts doesn’t add up

The Iowa Democratic Party is rejecting calls for it to perform an audit of caucus results from last week despite the discrepancies that have been reported since it declared that Hillary Clinton narrowly defeated Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.).

The pressure for an audit grew on Thursday evening when the Des Moines Registereditorial board wrote that the “refusal to undergo scrutiny or allow for an appeal reeks of autocracy” and that the “Iowa Democratic Party must act quickly to assure the accuracy of the caucus results, beyond a shadow of a doubt.”

The final tally announced by the Iowa Democratic Party awarded 700.59 delegates to Clinton and 696.82 to Sanders, but the results coming out of numerous precincts have been called into question.

“Too many accounts have arisen of inconsistent counts, untrained and overwhelmed volunteers, confused voters, cramped precinct locations, a lack of voter registration forms and other problems,” wrote the Des Moines Register. “Too many of us, including members of the Register editorial board who were observing caucuses, saw opportunities for error amid Monday night’s chaos.”

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