Democrats Alter Caucus Results, Award Extra Delegate to Clinton


Organizational issues plagued the Iowa Democratic Party’s caucus from early in the night, as many saw on TV images of long lines and overfilled halls waiting to cast their vote for Clinton, Sanders, and — for an optimistic few — Martin O’Malley. What wasn’t seen was the chaos that continued long after official voting had ended, and the potential resulting fraud that occurred from within.

In the Iowa Democratic party’s chaotic attempt to report caucus results on Monday night, the results in at least one precinct were unilaterally changed by the party as it attempted to deal with the culmination of a rushed and imperfect process overseeing the first-in-the-nation nominating contest.

In Grinnell Ward 1, the precinct where elite liberal arts college Grinnell College is located, 19 delegates were awarded to Bernie Sanders and seven were awarded to Hillary Clinton on caucus night. However, the Iowa Democratic party decided to shift one delegate from Sanders to Clinton on the night and did not notify precinct secretary J Pablo Silva that they had done so. Silva only discovered that this happened the next day, when checking the precinct results in other parts of the county.

The shift of one delegate at a county convention level would not have significantly affected the ultimate outcome of the caucus, but rather, it raises questions about the Iowa Democratic party’s management of caucus night.

The Iowa Democratic party had long been with organizational issues around the caucus and failed to find hundreds of needed volunteers to oversee individual precinct caucuses just over a week before Monday. The result was a disorganized process that lent itself to chaos and conspiracy theories. Although Andy McGuire, the chair of the Iowa Democratic party, is a longtime Clinton supporter whose license plate once read HRC 2016, no one familiar with the issue has accused the error of being a partisan process. Instead, they have blamed simple mismanagement.

The DNC has long been trying to silence Bernie in an attempt to crown Hillary as an unwounded nominee. As allegations of potential fraud roll in, Bernie’s cries of foul may be harder and harder to ignore. Lets see if The Democratic party listens, or ignores it altogether.



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