Iowa's biggest newspaper is calling for an audit of the Democratic caucuses

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Though the national news media might be shifting attention to New Hampshire's primary on Tuesday, Sanders supporters can't forget about Iowa. And now they have an ally on their side: the state's influential Des Moines Register newspaper editorial board.

The newspaper published an editorial Wednesday calling for the Iowa Democratic Party to reevaluate its nearly 50-year-old traditions and bring more accountability to the system.

Once again the world is laughing at Iowa. Late-night comedians and social media mavens are having a field day with jokes about missing caucusgoers and coin flips.

Thatâ??s fine. We can take ribbing over our quirky process. But what we canâ??t stomach is even the whiff of impropriety or error.

What happened Monday night at the Democratic caucuses was a debacle, period. Democracy, particularly at the local party level, can be slow, messy and obscure. But the refusal to undergo scrutiny or allow for an appeal reeks of autocracy.

The Iowa Democratic Party must act quickly to assure the accuracy of the caucus results, beyond a shadow of a doubt.

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Two-tenths of 1 percent separated Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. A caucus should not be confused with an election, but itâ??s worth noting that much larger margins trigger automatic recounts in other states.

The chair of the Iowa Democratic Party, Dr. Andy McGuire, maintained that the results are final and said she will not release the actual raw vote count â?? which has never been done in the history of the Iowa Democratic Party.
The current system has a lot of potential for error

The Iowa Democratic Party finally declared Hillary Clinton victor at 2:30 am Tuesday, after it took hours to find the votes from as many as 90 missing precincts. But Sanders is still calling it a "virtual tie" â?? his campaign went precinct by precinct to tally up the numbers themselves.

Contrary to Iowa's Republican caucuses, which vote by private paper ballot and determine the winner by popular vote, Iowa's Democrats hold a live event, where voters can change votes and ballots are tallied through head count. But the process doesn't end there. Head counts are converted to a proportional number of county convention delegates, which are then converted to "state delegate equivalents," which then determine the win.

Ultimately, this process means there is a lot of room for human error, as Sanders campaign aides found when they went precinct by precinct to review the numbers.

"It's not that we think anybody did anything intentionally, but human error happens," Rania Batrice, a Sanders spokesperson, told the Des Moines Register.

Continued Iowa's biggest newspaper is calling for an audit of the Democratic caucuses. Here's why. - Vox