The Democrats' intensely-awaited vote in Iowa has descended into chaos and farce, as officials were forced to delay releasing the results after finding "inconsistencies” in the information collected.

In a huge embarrassment for the Democratic Party - and one immediately leapt on by Donald’s Trump’s supporters - the release of the results was held up. Unconfirmed reports said the results would be released "some time" on Tuesday. At the same time, Mr Trump easily won the Republican caucus.

Candidates were forced to deliver speeches to supporters without the results being known. Some appeared more happy to do so than others. Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar and Bernie Sanders all delivered victory speeches of sorts.

Meanwhile, the campaign of Joe Biden, who, according to a number of anecdotal reports from caucus venues had done less well than he would have hoped, wrote to the Iowa Democratic Party demanding a full investigation.

His lawyer, Dana Remus, said there were widespread failures in the party's system of reporting results. “We believe that the campaigns deserve full explanations and relevant information regarding the methods of quality control you are employing, and an opportunity to respond, before any official results are released,” she said.​

The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Show all 25 1 /25 The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Bernie Sanders The Vermont senator has launched a second bid for president after losing out to Hilary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic primaries. He is running on a similar platform of democratic socialist reform Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Joe Biden The former vice president recently faced scrutiny for inappropriate touching of women, but was thought to deal with the criticism well and has since maintained a front runner status in national polling EPA The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Elizabeth Warren The Massachusetts senator is a progressive Democrat, and a major supporter of regulating Wall Street Reuters The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Amy Klobuchar Klobuchar is a Minnesota senator who earned praise for her contribution to the Brett Kavanaugh hearings Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Michael Bloomberg Michael Bloomberg, a late addition to the 2020 race, announced his candidacy after months of speculation in November. 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Democratic officials said the problem was not a hack and they were acting to ensure the results of the first state to vote were accurate and trustworthy.

“We found inconsistencies in the reporting of three sets of results. In addition to the tech systems being used to tabulate results, we are also using photos of results and a paper trail to validate that all results match and ensure that we have confidence and accuracy in the numbers we report,” said Iowa Democratic Party Communications Director Mandy McClure.

“This is simply a reporting issue. The app did not go down and this is not a hack or an intrusion. The underlying data and paper trail is sound and will simply take time to further report the results.”

The delay forced various candidates to deliver their “victory” speeches before the results had been made public.

Ms Warren said the results were “too close to call” and used much of a speech at her caucus party to criticise Mr Trump.

“We don’t know all the results tonight, but tonight has already shown that Americans have a hunger for big structural change,” she said.

Bernie Sanders responds to Hillary Clinton's 'nobody likes him' comments

“A president’s values matters and the only thing Donald Trump values is Donald Trump.”

Mr Sanders said that he had a “good feeling” the results would be released at some point. He added: “I have a good feeling when they are, we’ll be doing well in Iowa.”

Joe Biden, Andrew Yang and Amy Klobuchar also spoke before their supporters.

“Folks, we need a president who is not only ready to fight but is also ready to heal this country,” said Mr Biden.

“We can’t hold grudges. We’ve got to be able to go out and unify the country. Because the president is supposed to heal as well as fight.”

Mr Biden also claimed that his campaign was close.

“The Iowa Democratic Party is working to get this result — get ‘em straight,“ he said. “And I want to make sure they’re very careful in their deliberations. And indications are it’s going to be close. We’re going to walk out of here with our share of delegates.”

Reports said the campaigns had been told there would be no results until Tuesday. “The [Iowa Democratic Party] hung up on campaigns when they pressed for a release time,” one senior strategist for a leading candidate told The Hill. “We won’t know anything until some time tomorrow. All campaigns are p*ssed."

Mr Trump’s supporters immediately sought to seize on the chaos.