On February 3, 2020, American voters got their first taste of voting in this year’s election through the Iowa Caucus. Amid a change of procedures, this event became a disaster for the Democratic party.
This year was the first of which the caucus was supposed to switch over to a smartphone application in order to report the results. Due to technical issues, the method involving this app proved insufficient, leading the precinct officials to move to Plan B, which also was unsuccessful.
After resorting to phoning in the data, officials needed a way to verify the results which they did through email. This process had already stretched the event into Tuesday morning, by which over 700 emails had been delivered.
After nearly a week, however, the verified final results are in. Mayor Pete Buttigieg won with 13 delegates and 26.2% of voters, narrowly surpassing Senator Bernie Sanders’ 12 delegates and 26.1%. Elizabeth Warren ended with eight representatives and 18% of the vote, and Vice President Biden finished fourth with six delegates and 15.8%. Amy Klobuchar achieved the support of one delegate, unlike Andrew Yang and Tom Steyer who shared very few votes.
Despite the ending to this seemingly disastrous event, the damage done in the past week has led many of the presidential candidates to speak out on the subject.
Calling the Iowa Caucuses “an unmitigated disaster,” Donald Trump was quick to bring disgrace to the Democratic Party over the incident.
Meanwhile, both Buttigieg and Sanders’ campaigns have called for a recanvasing on the results, KCCI Des Moines reported.
Reid J. Epstein, Sydney Ember, Trip Gabriel and Mike Baker from The New York Times analyzed the downfall of the event in their article, “How the Iowa Caucuses Became an Epic Fiasco for Democrats,” in which they reported: “As disastrous as the 2020 Iowa caucuses have appeared to the public, the failure runs deeper and wider than has previously been known, according to dozens of interviews with those involved. It was a total system breakdown that casts doubt on how a critical contest on the American political calendar has been managed for years.”