Jennifer Jacobs

The Des Moines Register

DES MOINES, Iowa — Keane Schwarz is certain he knows the outcome of the vote in his precinct: He was the lone caucusgoer in Woodbury County No. 43.

But the Iowa Democratic Party's final results state that Hillary Clinton won one county delegate and Bernie Sanders received zero.

"I voted for Bernie," Schwarz, 36, of Oto, told The Des Moines Register. “It was really suspicious … I’m actually pretty irate about it.”

Some complaints that Iowa Democrats have shared with the Register about discrepancies in caucus results appear to be valid. Others stem from confusion over how the math-heavy delegate-awarding system works in the Democrats' caucus process.

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Party officials on Friday night were still reviewing reports and correcting errors and hadn’t yet shared candidates' updated totals of state delegate equivalents, which determine the winner of the caucuses.

Sanders’ backers are more likely than Clinton’s to think the political system is rigged, polling has found. So it might not come as a surprise, especially since he lost by a hairsbreadth, that some think the Democratic caucus system is rigged. It also doesn't help the optics that the state party chairwoman drove around for years in a car with “HRC2016” license plates.

Several caucusgoers told the Register they thought Sanders had been shorted county delegates, including in Knoxville No. 3.

A total of 110 people were present for the final vote, and the count was 58 people for Sanders and 52 people for Clinton — which amounted to five county delegates for Sanders and four for Clinton, said Lonnie McCombs, a 59-year-old Knoxville Democrat who is retired from careers in the military and in manufacturing.

“That’s how it was recorded,” said McCombs, a Sanders backer.

But when the Knoxville Journal Express newspaper posted the Democratic Party’s official results, it showed Knoxville No. 3 results as Clinton with five county delegates and Sanders with four.

“It cost Bernie a (county) delegate,” said McCombs, who took to Facebook to report his concerns.

Steve Eck, who was Clinton’s precinct captain for Knoxville No. 3, confirmed: “Somebody transposed those numbers.”

Eck, a 61-year-old nurse anesthesiologist, said the problem was reported to party officials.

Iowa Democrats choose about 11,000 county delegates, and there are about 1,400 state delegates. The fraction of state delegates awarded per county delegate varies, from as little as 0.0167 to 0.3517. The variation hinges in large part on the strength of the Democratic vote from a county in previous statewide elections.

The bottom line is that it would take lots of mistakes from lots of precincts in determining county delegates, with a disproportionate number going Sanders' way, to affect the outcome.

Elsewhere, counting problems were a cause for heartburn.

Debra Langguth, who lives in Cedar Rapids No. 9, said the precinct’s four delegates split evenly between Sanders and Clinton, who won by just one person's vote.

The problem, she said, was that 131 people signed in at the beginning of the caucus but two separate head counts showed that 136 people voted.

“No steps were ever taken to find out who these extra five people were. They could have had everyone step to one side of the room, and go to the other side as their names were read off the registration list,” Langguth said. “Who knows if these people were even registered to vote in our district.”

In some cases, the math seemed fishy. For example, the final count in Ankeny No. 12 was 148 people for Sanders and 128 people for Clinton, caucusgoer Tucker Melssen told the Register. The precinct had been awarded eight county delegates.

Clinton and Sanders each got four county delegates, the official party records show. Melssen wondered if that’s an error: Shouldn't Sanders have gotten at least one more than Clinton?

No, state party officials said. The math worked out to Sanders getting 4.29 county delegates and Clinton 3.7. With the rounding rules, each received four. Sanders couldn't receive 0.29 of a delegate because Democrats were electing real people to be delegates at their county convention.

Another prevalent complaint was that some caucusgoers left after the first count, skewing the final count. The final count was taken after undecided voters or Iowans who backed underdog Martin O’Malley joined the Sanders or Clinton groups.

And many have called for the release of raw vote totals.

John Rousseau, a Sanders backer who lives in Des Moines No. 42, the precinct that turned in the final batch of votes from among a dozen missing precincts on caucus night, said he appreciates being “a part of such a historic and chaotic evening.”

But after everyone had formed initial groups for their preferred candidate, “a Hillary supporter was addressing the O'Malley and ‘undecided’ supporters,” said Rousseau, a 40-year-old small business owner. “He said to them they could stay and realign or leave.”

Some mistakenly thought that meant the voting was done and left, Rousseau said.

Rousseau would like to see the popular vote count, not just the delegate count.

He said: “I think (Sanders) won, by that count."