Iowa was a Mess and it Needs to Be Fixed
Image source: NPR
The Iowa caucuses have been nothing short of a disaster. Before they began, full results were expected by the end of the night. It has now been over one week since Iowa, and there is still no official winner.
Initial problems began when the Shadow App, an application used to vote in certain precincts, crashed. This resulted in the need for quality control regarding vote tallies and thus delayed the results. Further hold-ups took place upon the discovery of misallocated delegates by the Black Hawk county chair. Black Hawk County state delegates assigned to Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren were mistakenly allocated to Deval Patrick and Tom Steyer due to the misrecording of votes. Just as it seemed a winner of Iowa could be declared with 97% of precincts reported days later, the New York Times highlighted a plethora of inconsistencies across many precincts, calling all of the results into question.
With the current results, former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg leads the pack with 564 state delegates, followed by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders with 562 state delegates, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren with 388, former Vice President Joe Biden with 340 and Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar with 264. State delegates, which are used to determine the winner of the Iowa caucus, translate into pledged delegates at the Democratic National Convention: Buttigieg is currently estimated to receive 13 pledged delegates from Iowa, followed by Sanders with 12, Warren with 8, Biden with 6 and Klobuchar with 1. Conversely, Sanders has a more comfortable lead with the final alignment vote of 2,568 votes (1.4% over Buttigieg). Sanders leads by a greater margin in the initial alignment vote with 6,103 more votes and a 3.4% lead. With such a close margin between Buttigieg and Sanders, however, the Associated Press refuses to call a winner. As more inconsistencies in the reporting come to light, focus has shifted away from the winners of the caucuses to a debate over the legitimacy of caucusing itself.
The non-uniform implementation and faultiness of Shadow App were the primary cause for the delay. The app’s failure indicates that it was not tested properly by the Iowa Democratic Party, pointing to complete incompetence on its part. This ineptitude is further compacted by the errors pointed out by the New York Times and others, while sources confirm that the app received little testing. Additionally, inconsistencies between the app and the paper trail were reported by the Iowa Democratic Party, pointing to further evidence of Shadow App’s faulty design. The failure of the app forced Iowa officials to go back through the hefty paper trail of votes, which unfortunately led to mathematical errors and mistaken allocation of delegates, further feeding the narrative of an incompetent Iowa Democratic Party and an antiquated caucus system.
Incorrect math and misallocation of state delegates have plagued the results of the caucuses. As previously mentioned, flaws in the outcomes were initially pointed out when the Black Hawk County Chair discovered differences in the final alignment vote with those being reported. Ultimately, he found that delegates meant for Bernie Sanders had been awarded to Deval Patrick and delegates for Elizabeth Warren awarded to Tom Steyer. Besides serving as an embarrassing reminder of the room for error within the Iowa caucuses and fueling a negative media narrative, these mistaken results may have shaken the confidence of some Democrats in the primary process. With the discrepancies reported by the New York Times, DNC chair Tom Perez called for a recanvassing of Iowa giving an expressed desire from the candidates. With both Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg calling for recanvassing, the Iowa Democratic Party will do so. With a mere two state delegates separating Buttigieg and Sanders, the results of the caucuses are likely to change. With flawed results, Democratic voters may lose faith in the integrity of the primary system at large, perhaps affecting turnout and enthusiasm for the party.
The dominant media narrative of the disaster at the Iowa Caucuses has actively harmed the apparent leaders, Sanders and Buttigieg. The results in Iowa had a bearing on the primary race, particularly in New Hampshire where Sanders maintained his existing lead and won. Buttigieg surged to a close second and Joe Biden, following a disappointing fourth-place finish in Iowa, nosedived to fifth in New Hampshire. Iowa, despite providing few delegates, is regarded as such a crucial state due to its ability to shape media narratives and candidate momentum following the results. The rightful media narratives that should have been dominated by Sanders and Buttigieg were instead tainted by the chaotic caucuses, perhaps stunting some of their momentum. Despite this recent fall, Biden appeared to benefit from the catastrophe in Iowa. With such a poor result, a more untainted media narrative with greater attention focused on the winners could have been better for Sanders and Buttigieg, and more damaging to Biden.
Iowa’s state delegate system, through which pledged delegates at the National Convention are assigned, is reminiscent of the electoral college in that it does not always reflect the popular vote. Such a scenario occurred at this year’s Iowa Caucuses, in which Bernie Sanders won both the initial and final alignment votes despite losing in state delegates to Buttigieg. Further adding to the confusion from Iowa, this led to both Sanders and Buttigieg declaring victory. This system of state delegates is ridiculous and undemocratic. The notion of winning the popular vote while simultaneously losing an election is asinine, and by not reflecting the will of the majority of caucus-goers, runs contrary to the idea that “every vote counts.” Assuming the errors pointed out by the New York Times are relatively minor, Sanders should have been treated as the winner of Iowa based on his victory in the final vote alignment. This is not to say Buttigieg didn’t earn positive press, especially given his impressive second-place finish; Bernie simply should have been regarded as the winner.
Both the injustice of determining a winner through a metric other than popular vote and the disorganization of the caucuses harkens a call for a regular primary in Iowa. A regular primary can fairly determine a winner through a popular vote – Iowa, if the leadership so wishes, can perhaps institute a ranked-choice voting system if they wish to preserve their system of having an initial and final alignment. Primaries are less time-consuming and encourage greater voter turnout. Whereas Iowa turnout was slightly depressed compared to the 2016 caucuses, New Hampshire turnout eclipsed the 2016 primary, and was even comparable to (if not greater than) the 2008 primary. Finally, room for massive error with disastrous consequences for candidates and voters has been demonstrated in the Iowa caucuses. A primary system, which is far simpler in nature, would be less prone to error and would not result in a lack of faith in the Iowa Democratic Party. The disarray in the Iowa Caucuses has shaken the faith of those observing the election and portrayed the Democratic Party as disorganized. Unfortunately, this allows Donald Trump to paint the party as chaotic to increase his reelection chances. This mistake, however, may be forgotten as the primary process continues and new media narratives are formed. I personally hope that the Iowa Democratic Party and the Democratic Party as a whole acknowledge the error-prone, undemocratic Iowa caucuses for what they are, and finally move to a primary system.
Sources:
Cohn, Nate, Josh Katz, Denise Lu, Charlie Smart, Ben Smithgall, and Andrew Fischer. “Iowa Caucus Results Riddled With Errors and Inconsistencies.” The New York Times. The New York Times, February 6, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/06/upshot/iowa-caucuses-errors-results.html?auth=login-email&login=email.
Cole, Devan, and Dan Merica. “Sanders and Buttigieg Campaigns Ask for Partial Recanvass of Iowa Caucuses Results.” CNN. Cable News Network, February 10, 2020. https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/10/politics/iowa-caucuses-recanvass/index.html.
Read, Max. “The Real Problems With the Iowa Caucuses' 'Shadow' App.” Intelligencer. Intelligencer, February 4, 2020. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/the-real-problems-with-the-iowa-caucuses-shadow-app.html.
Stewart, Emily. “Acronym, the Dark Money Group behind the Iowa Caucuses App Meltdown, Explained.” Vox. Vox, February 8, 2020. https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/2/5/21123009/acronym-tara-mcgowan-shadow-app-iowa-caucus-results.