Frustration Persists As Results Finally Come In After Messy Iowa Caucuses
BETTENDORF, Iowa (CBS Chicago/CBS News) -- It took 21 hours, but some results finally came in Tuesday afternoon from the Iowa caucuses.
With 62% of precincts were reporting late Tuesday, former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg held a narrow lead in the delegate equivalent share at 26.9%. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) came close behind with 25.1%.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) came in third with 18.3%, and former Vice President Joe Biden ranked fourth with 15.6%. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) had 12.5% and Andrew Yang had 1%.
But results also showed Sanders with a very narrow lead when it comes to caucus goers' final choice. Sanders had 26% of the popular vote count, with Buttigieg at 25%, Warren at 21%, Biden at 13% and Klobuchar at 12%. The announcement comes after an embarrassing stumble Monday night when technical problems forced the party to delay the announcement of the results.
As for the remaining 38% of the results, spokesperson Mandy McClure said that "we will continue to release results as we are able to."
The party said Tuesday that the problems came from an error in the app used by precinct chairs to report caucus results. The party stressed that the flaw did not impact the accuracy of the data, and that there's no evidence of hacking.
At a news conference before the results were announced, Iowa Democratic Party Chair Troy Price expressed regret over what went wrong Monday night, saying there was a "stumbling block" in receiving the data.
Price blamed a "coding error" as the source of the issue, but insisted the "raw data" is "secure."
Asked how people can trust the state party now, Price responded the Iowa Democratic Party has "been working day and night to make sure that these results are accurate."
As CBS 2 Political Investigator Dana Kozlov reported from Bettendorf, Iowa Tuesday, the lack of reporting of results started
Started as puzzlement, became mess, turned into big questions about how result delay hapeend at all.
But dem leaders in Quad Citiesmakigjne sure correct.
It was almost an all-nighter as Scott County Democratic Party Chairwoman Elesha Gayman and other volunteers spent most of the day checking presidential preference cards and other caucus paperwork, preparing to ship it off to Des Moines.
"We are double-checking everything to make sure all the papers are signed and all of that stuff," Gayman said. "We are not doing any kind of recounts. We obviously have the counts as they come in. They're recorded on like a mass sheet."
Gayman said the results of their county's caucus mirror what was expected, with Biden, Sanders, Warren, and Buttigieg coming out in front.
"Clearly, there's four candidates emerging across the county, and I think if that is true for the rest of the state, it's going to be a very tight race," Gayman said.
But of course, official results were still trickling in after dark Tuesday, nearly 24 hours after the caucuses were over. As to the app that is being blamed, Gayman guesses two PINs for security added to the problem.
"I think the PIN numbers seem to be getting twisted around, and as soon as you get locked out of the app that's so secure, there's no reset password. You're out," Gayman said. "And so I think at the end of the day, that's what we're going to find out is a lot of PIN mix-ups."
Gayman said she is confident all the results will be accurate. But on Monday night, there was grumbling about concerns with regard to the new presidential preference cards and how people recorded their votes. All those issues were being reviewed Tuesday night.