DES MOINES, Iowa — Joe Biden’s campaign is demanding answers after a delay by the Iowa Democratic Party in naming the winner of its first-in-the-nation 2020 primary contest.
“The app that was intended to relay Caucus results to the Party failed; the Party’s back-up telephone reporting system likewise failed,” Biden lawyer Dana Demus wrote in a letter late Monday.
Demus, the camp’s general counsel, added, “Now we understand that the Caucus Chairs are attempting to — and, in many cases, failing to — report results telephonically to the Party.”
Biden’s team asked state party officials for “full explanations and relevant information regarding the methods of quality control you are employing, and an opportunity to respond, before any official results are released.”
The former vice president, 77, who was expected to perform poorly in Iowa, addressed a crowded room at Drake University in Des Moines Monday night, telling supporters that internal numbers indicated it was a tight race but he was feeling good about the outcome. He will now make his way to New Hampshire with a host of 2020 Democratic rivals.
The Iowa Democratic Party on Monday advised the contenders that it had found “inconsistencies in the reporting of three sets of results,” referring to caucus alignment and delegate allocation outcomes.
“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,” spokeswoman Mandy McClure said in a statement.
She continued, “This is simply a reporting issue, the app did not go down and this is not a hack or an intrusion. The underlying data and paper trail is sound and will simply take time to further report the results.”
The Iowa Democratic Party had earlier in the night tried to calm anxious campaigns, news outlets, and party members by saying the delay was due to “quality control” checks and that the wait was “out of an abundance of caution.”
