First, the Des Moines Register , which endorsed Hillary, announced that “something smelled” and called for an audit:

All is proceeding exactly as I hoped . The naïve and idealistic young supporters of Bernie Sanders are getting more and more evidence that the fix is in for Hillary Clinton, a corrupt, unappealing rich woman whose wealth comes from favor-seeking moneyed interests. It looks very much as though the Iowa Caucuses vote counting was rigged.

What happened Monday night at the Democratic caucuses was a debacle, period. Democracy, particularly at the local party level, can be slow, messy and obscure. But the refusal to undergo scrutiny or allow for an appeal reeks of autocracy. (snip) The Sanders campaign is rechecking results on its own, going precinct by precinct, and is already finding inconsistencies, said Rania Batrice, a Sanders spokeswoman. The campaign seeks the math sheets or other paperwork that precinct chairs filled out and were supposed to return to the state party. They want to compare those documents to the results entered into a Microsoft app and sent to the party. “Let’s compare notes. Let’s see if they match,” Batrice said Wednesday. Dr. Andy McGuire, chairwoman of the Iowa Democratic Party, dug in her heels and said no. She said the three campaigns had representatives in a room in the hours after the caucuses and went over the discrepancies. McGuire knows what’s at stake. Her actions only confirm the suspicions, wild as they might be, of Sanders supporters. Their candidate, after all, is opposed by the party establishment — and wasn’t even a Democrat a few months ago.

It didn’t take long to discover that this same party official is driving around the Hawkeye state in a car with the vanity license plate “HRC 2016”

The Iowa Democratic party chair who is refusing to release raw vote totals from Monday’s state caucuses is a long-time Hillary Clinton supporter who donated to the politician’s various campaigns and who reportedly drives a Buick with the license plate “HRC 2016.” Dr. Andrea “Andy” McGuire has shot down calls to review vote tallies from Monday’s contest despite Clinton’s razor-thin win over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders...There’s plenty of reason to question McGuire’s objectivity, however. A Daily Caller analysis of federal campaign finance records shows that McGuire has contributed $7,139 to Clinton’s campaigns over the years. On Dec. 29, 2008 she donated to Hill PAC, a political action committee set up for Clinton. On Sept. 30, 2007 McGuire gave $2,300 to Clinton’s presidential campaign. She donated $588.80 to the campaign on June 27, 2007. And on June 7, 2005, McGuire gave $4,000 to Clinton’s Senate campaign.

The great Mark Steyn quips:

If Iowa were one of those banana republics in which the president-for-life has been prevailed upon to hold an election and Jimmy Carter and a bunch of UN observers had flown in to certify it, none of the above would pass muster.

Even if Bernie wins New Hampshire and does better than expected in South Carolina, the Democratic Party elders will continue the thumb-on-the-scale behavior. If Hillary continues to collapse, they will rig the convention in Philadelphia.

It is shaping up as a rerun of 1968, when the Chicago Democratic National Convention was a debacle that divided and dispirited the party. Instead of anti-war extremists, this time it is socialism extremists. If you think disillusioned young people would still show up and pull the lever for down ticket Democrats, you have not spent much time on college campuses.

Of course, an indictment of Hillary could prevent this prospective train wreck. Hmmm. Something for Valerie Jarrett to ponder.