ALTOONA, Iowa — The Iowa Democratic Party on Monday said an extended delay in the reporting of results from the first-in-the-nation caucuses was not a result of “a hack or an intrusion” but that there have been “inconsistencies” in the results.
“We found inconsistencies in the reporting of three sets of results,” said IDP spokeswoman Mandy McClure. “In addition to the tech systems being used to tabulate results, we are also using photos of results and a paper trail to validate that all results match and ensure that we have confidence and accuracy in the numbers we report.”
“This is simply a reporting issue, the app did not go down and this is not a hack or an intrusion,” she said. “The underlying data and paper trail is sound and will simply take time to further report the results.”
Approaching 11 p.m. central standard time, the Iowa Democratic Party had not reported any official results from the nearly 1,700 precincts across the state, stoking speculation about the ultimate legitimacy of the tallies.
There had been reports of issues with a new app precinct chairs could use to relay their results to the state party.
In a break from the past, there were supposed to be multiple announcements of results: the raw vote totals after the first “alignment,” the totals after the second and final alignment, and the projected number of delegates
Most caucus sites kicked off the proceedings at 7 p.m.
Several top contenders, already prepared to travel to New Hampshire to campaign ahead of the Feb. 11 primary, gave abbreviated versions of their stump speeches as they awaited the results.
“Well it looks like it’s going to be a long night, but I’m feeling good,” said former Vice President Joseph R. Biden.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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