Democratic Party officials are reviewing results from the Iowa caucuses after a “very small number of concerns” were raised, a spokesman said Saturday.
Hillary Clinton claimed a narrow victory over Bernie Sanders in the first-in-the-nation voting state on Monday, winning 49.9% to 49.6%, or the equivalent of about four state delegates.
Sam Lau, a spokesman for the state Democratic Party, told CNN Saturday that “both the Sanders and Clinton campaigns have flagged a very small number of concerns for us, and we are looking at them all on a case-by-case basis. We are still in the review process of gathering information and speaking with local leaders.”
Lau did not provide additional details. The Des Moines Register first reported the review.
The Register called for an audit of the results in an editorial on Friday.
Some of the controversy stems from apparent confusion about the caucus process. The winner of the caucuses is decided by state delegate equivalents, tied to a math formula, not head counts.
There’s also been some confusion about how much of a role — if any — coin flips played in determining who won delegates.
Coin flips — specifically “games of chance” — are used in rare circumstances at precinct caucuses to adjudicate ties or resolve issues created by rounding errors. At stake at these precinct-level coin flips is the one remaining slot in that precinct for a campaign to send a delegate to attend that precinct’s county convention. Coin flips are not used to decide which candidate wins a state convention delegate or national convention delegate.
Sanders was asked about the controversy at Thursday’s Democratic debate hosted by MSNBC.
“We think, by the way, based on talking to our precinct captains, we may have at least two more delegates,” Sanders said. “At the end of the day, no matter how it’s recounted, it will break roughly even.”
