Iowa caucus results are in, but not final, as state Democratic Party asks campaigns to air their issues

After days of delays, recriminations and the Iowa Democratic Party's release of complete results of Monday night's caucuses, the work isn't over.

Party officials on Friday invited presidential campaigns to report errors in the delegate count and gave them until noon Saturday to do so. The campaigns also have until noon Monday to ask for a recanvass of results from all 1,700-plus precincts — a deadline the party announced it had extended about 30 minutes before the initial deadline of noon Friday expired.

Iowa Democratic Party Chair Troy Price further announced Democrats would commission an independent investigation of "what went right, what went wrong, from start to finish" with the entire caucus process. The counting of the caucus results in particular left presidential campaigns frustrated as they departed for New Hampshire without even preliminary results in how the first-in-the-nation nominating contest panned out.

"The challenges of reporting data and delays of publicizing the results were categorically unacceptable," Price said in a news conference Friday afternoon. "Iowa Democrats demand better of us. Quite frankly, we demand better of ourselves."

The demands for improvement have echoed loudly in Iowa and across the country in recent days after results were delayed and included errors, supporters were desperate to have their preferences counted and the national Democratic chair called the process a "major league failure."

Price, in only his second public news conference since Monday night's meltdown, said, "today, until the process is complete, I will honor (Iowa Democrats') service by making the reforms we need to earn their trust."

Results complete but errors exist

With 99.74% of precincts reporting, per Associated Press figures, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg holds a 2-delegate lead over U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont — or 0.09% of all state delegate equivalents.

But those results are in doubt. Caucus attendees; the Des Moines Register and other media; and the presidential campaigns themselves have all found errors in the results the party released.

The party asked campaigns to submit "documentary evidence" of inconsistencies in reported precinct results. The evidence must show a discrepancy between the precincts' "caucus math worksheet" and publicly reported results. If the party verifies the discrepancy, it will correct the public report, spokesperson Mandy McClure said in an email to the Register.

Price said the party could report only results based on information precinct chairs sent to the state. Officials couldn't cross-check those numbers in order to make changes.

"The math worksheet is actually a legal document," Price said. "It's signed by the precinct chair and the precinct captains, the campaign representatives in those precincts. And so we are not allowed to change that. We have to report out what's reported to us."

The Register and others have found contradictions in the precinct-level results and the results the state party reported, as well as state party results that are not consistent with the rules the party had set out for how support should be counted.

In the party's statement announcing the recanvass extension, it cited some inconsistencies in the count's data.

A recanvass isn't a recount, just as a caucus isn't an election. It would involve representatives of the Iowa Democratic Party auditing the caucus math worksheets completed by precinct chairs from all 1,700-plus caucus and satellite caucus sites in the state. The goal would be to make sure the numbers reported from the sites match what was reported through the app or the telephone line.

None of the presidential campaigns signaled before the Friday deadline that they planned to ask for a recanvass.

Speaking in New Hampshire on Thursday, and claiming overall victory in Iowa, Sanders said he didn't expect a recanvass would shift the numbers that mattered most to his campaign.

The Sanders campaign also released a list of alleged discrepancies in state delegate equivalent calculations Thursday night, which, if validated, would add to his tally.

On Friday afternoon, Sanders told CNN he would ask the state party to look into the irregularities, but that he did not want a complete recanvass.

Even with almost every precinct reporting, the Associated Press declined to call the contest Thursday night. It cited irregularities in the process and the tight margin.

U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who finished in fifth in all measures, said in a New Hampshire press gaggle that her campaign probably "won't need to" request a recanvass and cited other campaigns' interest in it.

In delegate strength, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren was third with 18%, followed by former Vice President Joe Biden (16%) and Klobuchar (12%). Andrew Yang, an entrepreneur, was the only other candidate to earn at least 1% of the state delegate equivalents.

Buttigieg, Biden and Warren's campaigns have not said they would request a recanvass.

State, national Democrats at odds

Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez on Thursday demanded a recanvass, but the state party's recanvass rules appear to allow only presidential campaigns to request such re-examinations. Price did not engage with questions about whether he felt blindsided by Perez's comment, only that he's "been proud of our partnership with the DNC."

Perez has started taking an increasing amount of criticism from other Democrats, according to Politico, upset that he left Price to take the brunt of the immediate fallout.

Former Democratic Iowa state Sen. Jack Hatch wrote on Twitter Friday that Perez is "sabotaging" the caucuses because the DNC had rejected the state party's caucus plan and forced it to use the software app to report the results.

The national party allegedly forced a last-minute security update to the phone app that was used to report precinct results, an update some Iowa Democratic Party staffers blame for the breakdown in the app's ability to work with the party's internal database.

Price said "part of the challenge" with the caucus process was a "very rigorous, and sometime onerous, process of security" with the app, which required multiple steps to use it.

He did not try the app himself before it was deployed beyond reviewing things like some of its layout.

Price ultimately defended the process, results reporting notwithstanding.

"Look at what happened on Monday night. Take away the issues with reporting," Price said. "(Look at) the thousands of people who showed up across the state who had spent the last 13 months going through this job interview process for these presidential candidates. Iowa Democrats showed up on Monday night, they had these meetings, and it produced these results. Yes, it took longer than we would have liked to have seen. But Iowans came out on Monday night and made sure they had their voice heard in this process."

Detailed results:

Totals for the Democrats and Republicans

Democratic alignment https://features.desmoinesregister.com/news/politics/iowa-caucuses-results-alignment/data statewide and county-by-county

Nick Coltrain is a politics and data reporter for the Register. Reach him at ncoltrain@registermedia.com or at 515-284-8361. Your subscription makes work like this possible. Subscribe today at DesMoinesRegister.com/Deal.