Jennifer Jacobs

jejacobs@dmreg.com

Iowa Democratic Party officials are reviewing results from the Iowa caucuses and making updates where discrepancies have been found.

Party Chairwoman Andy McGuire the day after Monday's caucuses said no review would be conducted, and that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s narrow victory over Bernie Sanders was final.

But as errors are being discovered, the final tally is being changed, party officials confirmed to the Des Moines Register on Friday.

"Both the Sanders and Clinton campaigns have flagged a very small number of concerns for us, and we are looking at them all on a case-by-case basis," Iowa Democratic Party spokesman Sam Lau told the Register.

The latest development follows widespread questions among Iowa Democrats and national media about the accuracy of the counts reported on caucus night, which saw the second-highest number of participants and closest result in Democrats' caucus history.

The Register, too, has received numerous reports that the results announced at precincts Monday night don't match what the Iowa Democratic Party has posted on its official results website.

Just one example: Grinnell precinct No. 1.

At least three caucusgoers there (including Dan McCue and Zack Stewart) and the Grinnell College newspaper reported that Sanders won 19 county delegates and Clinton 7, but party officials said the final tally was Sanders 18 and Clinton 8.

“19-7 is right,” Pablo Silva, a Grinnell College professor who was precinct secretary, told the Register Friday. “It is complicated, but the issue comes down to a problem with the math that can be complicated in large precincts. Short version: On Monday night, the IDP felt we had not done it right, and they attempted to correct what they saw as errors. We’ve been in touch since then. They are acknowledging our results, but, as I write, will wait on the arrival of our paperwork.”

Lau confirmed those details.

The change in the county delegate count in Grinnell No. 1 represents a change of 0.072 state delegate equivalents — not even a tenth.

The final tally the state party announced Tuesday — before the latest changes were made — showed a difference of 3.77 state delegate equivalents:

Dig deeper on the data: Maps, charts on Iowa caucus results

Register editorial: Something smells in the Democratic Party

More coverage:

Clinton: 700.59 state delegate equivalents.

Sanders: 696.82 state delegate equivalents.

Reports of discrepancies in other precincts are still being reviewed.

Much of the confusion over counts that's proliferating in social media stems from confusion over the caucus process. Democrats physically divide at the caucus site into presidential preference groups and then realign if any candidate's group fails to reach a viability threshold, typically 15 percent. The winner of the caucuses is determined by state delegate equivalents, tied to a math formula, not head counts.

Complaints have also arisen about long waits to sign in, rooms that were overcrowded, the mistaken departure of some caucusgoers before the realignment process was completed and the use of coin flips to break ties in deciding county delegates. Some people confused county delegates (there are 11,000 of those) with state delegate equivalents (about 1,400), which decide the caucus winner.

As early as Tuesday morning, the Sanders campaign told the Register that its staffers had found some discrepancies between tallies at the precinct level and numbers that were reported to the state party. Sanders aides asked to sit down with the state party to review the paperwork from precinct chairs.

A Des Moines Register editorial has called for an audit of the results, and MSNBC debate moderator Chuck Todd asked Sanders Thursday night whether he believed Monday night's result was still an open question.

Sanders responded that he agreed with the Register's editorial and that improvements in the process to determine results were needed. But he also said "let's not blow this out of proportion." He noted that delegates to win the Democratic nomination are split proportionately in Iowa, and whatever the final count, "it will break roughly even."

Clinton campaign officials have lashed out at Sanders backers for peddling conspiracy theories.

“Hillary Clinton won Iowa. End of story,” Matt Paul, Clinton's Iowa campaign director, wrote in a post on Medium.com published Friday morning.

Paul wrote that even if Sanders aides were to win all of their challenges , the marginal bump won't overcome Clinton’s victory margin. He wrote:

​ Here’s the math. Total Precincts in Contest: 11 (7 from Sanders and 4 from the Iowa Democratic Party)

Total State Delegates being Contested: 1.7947 (not enough to change outcome) If every contest were to go in the favor of Sanders:

HRC = -.775

Sanders = +.758

MOM (Martin O'Malley) = +.0166 It may be inconvenient for the Sanders campaign that Hillary Clinton won the Iowa caucus, but it’s the truth.

Fred Brown, spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said: "If you’re still spending the Friday after the caucuses trying to convince people you won, you know it was a loss."