That is a silly question. Of course, Iowa is ready for democracy . . . it is just not ready to actually use it in real time. Once again, the nation is held hostage to a system that makes one long for a good speedy election from the North Korean Supreme People’s Assembly. Putting aside the question as to whether Iowa should be the first critical measure of the national election, the caucus system makes as much sense as selecting candidates by counting spontaneous flash mobs. It is clearly time to end the Iowa caucuses in favor of a system this side of the seventh century. I stayed up to around 11 and then threw in the towel. Many have call justice delayed justice denied. I just call it Iowa.
The blame is being put on a serious coding error in the App developed by a company called Shadow, which started out as Groundbase, co-founded by Gerard Niemira and Krista Davis, who worked for the tech team on Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the 2016 Democratic nomination. This politically connected firm also secured a contract with Nevada which was planning to use the same App in two weeks.
For the Sanders people, the problems seemed all too suspicious from 2016 when they accused Clinton allies who dominated the process irregularities and delays. The delay robbed non-establishment candidates like Sanders from holding valuable prime time events claiming momentum. Worse yet, Sanders campaign officials insist that the figures showed them winning, but that suddenly reports surfaced of Biden doing better than most polling. Even CNN, which has been widely criticized for its anti-Sanders coverage, reported that one polling site had to be moved to a larger space to accommodate the huge surge of Sanders supporters. This follows the spiking of the leading traditional poll on the night before the elections, a poll that some claimed showed a surge of the non-establishment candidates challenging Biden. With an electorate reportedly focused on electability, the loss of the poll was viewed as a blow to challengers like Sanders and Warren. Moreover, Sanders was counting on a fundraising boost with the victory on Monday night. The Iowa Democratic Party gutted that key money pull with this bizarre failure. It clearly benefited Biden and hurt Sanders — a failure and suspicious situation for Sanders supporters.
The candidates were forced to go to New Hampshire without results. Zero results. Pete Buttigieg declared victory, sort of, while Sanders’ campaign continued to maintain that their data shows a victory. The Biden campaign is already complaining of “acute failures” in the system — an attack that could be used to question the results. Biden advisers like Symone Sanders were on the air this morning questioning any results, so the failure of the Iowa Democratic Party may allow Biden to question whether he actually lost in the state (the very suspicion raised by the Sanders campaign). Symone Sanders is already calling the result “compromised.” The only ones not talking are Democratic Party officials.
The Iowa Democratic Party announced that it would have to release results on Tuesday — leaving the candidates, campaigns, and media in a “dressed up and no where to go” predicament. Panels of the experts eventually filled in their time by discussing the lunacy of the Iowa caucuses and the continued incompetence of election officials. In the meantime, the usual stories of chaos and coin flips filtered out of the state. What should also worry the DNC is the decline in first time participants. It was hoped that the race would generate more excitement and a sharp rise in participation.
The Democratic Party said that there were “inconsistencies,” an ironic explanation since the caucus system itself is one giant inconsistency with the logical approach of virtually every other state. Some blamed the App. Some blamed Des Moines. Some blamed the Democratic establishment. I blame the caucuses.
The Framers rejected pure democracies found in the ancient Greek city-states as inherently chaotic and unstable. Iowa makes ancient Greece look like the model of efficiency.
They will Void the Caucus. Watch.
They could have set up about 40 e-mail accounts at state hq and assign each precinct in the state to one account, then had the precinct tellers report the results of each successive ballot held in their precinct via e-mail. At the other end you could have a pair of tellers at state hq for each account who could collate the results in their set of precincts. You could have had preliminary results ready in an hour or so. Then, have the tellers at each precinct deliver notarized hard-copy tally sheets to state hq the next day. There isn’t any corner of the state more than 4 hours away by car. They could have had 1,700 manila envelopes full of tally sheets by noon the next day in order to conduct an audit. No need for apps or hotlines.
absurd, don’t give them free advice. we enjoy the chaos.
TRUMP 97% IOWA REPUBLICAN RESULTS
HAIL TRUMP
now that’s leadership people…. do you want chaos or order? easy choice!
Impeachment?
Trump is a threat to the Presidency?
Russians?
Oh boy…..they are so screwed, rolling in their manure.
Hysterical. Couldnt have ended better for the Dims
Drudgereport headlines:
HOT MESS 2020…
CAUCUS CONSPIRACY AGAINST SANDERS?
BERNIE INTERNALS SHOW HIM WINNING…
Tech firm started by Clinton campaign vets linked to debacle…
DHS head claims Dems refused to let department test app…
Frustration, questions…
Systemwide Disaster…
Delegates decided by coin flips…
Party Hangs Up On Precinct Captain On Live TV…
Entrance poll shows dip in first-timers…
Muddle adds new urgency to NH, as candidates flock there…
IOWA BLOWS IT
DEMS DOOMED?
‘QUALITY CONTROL’ OF VOTES
ELECTION FIASCO
PETE ‘VICTORIOUS’
APP FAILURE
SANDERS 00%
BUTTIGIEG 00%
WARREN 00%
Iowa is fine. They were careful last night. They need to elect and not select.
An “inconsistency” in Iowa’s caucus voting system leaves the Democrats without a clear winner on Tuesday [CNN]. The debacle all-but hands Trump the momentum going into the 2020 presidential election and the stock markets are rejoicing
Jim Cramer on Twitter
The reality is that nothing embarrases the Democrats…….they will keep spinning this until it makes sense, and then look at the rest of us like we’re the problem. That’s how their fantasy survives.
Dems invented: “Keep clapping, boys and girls! Don’t let Tinker Bell die!”
The caucus system reflects the Democratic Party as a whole, chaotic, inefficient, incompetent, manipulative, deceptive and ridden with failure. As usual the leaders blamed everyone but themselves.
Are we sure that Trump isn’t already interfering with the Democrats?
He doesn’t have to. They do it to themselves without any help.
PH, I guess after Wednesday the Dems will work on that theory and impeach him again this time blaming him for the problems in Iowa. They are like some of our leftist list members. They never look in a mirror to find the cause.
My wager would be one to two scenarios:
1. They applied computer technology to solve non-problems and introduced problems local to the use of such technology
2. Clinton partisans et al are falsifying the results to stop Sanders.
==
The caucus system in Iowa is needlessly rococo, perhaps due to inertia, perhaps due to shtick, or perhaps to protect the rice bowls of some influential faction. A simple system would be to divide the state into districts, each of which would be accorded one delegate to the national convention. The function of the precinct caucuses would be to elect a delegate to a district caucus, which in turn would elect a delegate to the national convention. Everything could be completed on two successive Saturdays.
The procedure at such caucuses would be to have the participants line up behind their preferred candidate for district caucus. Some such candidates would be pledged, some unpledged. Some candidates for President would have multiple people carrying their standard, some just one. The tellers would count the people in each line, then announce the tally of each. A bloc of candidates for the delegate slot would then be eliminated. You could use one of three screening rules: eliminate the caboose, eliminate all candidates who garnered less than 2% of the tally, or eliminate candidates n+1 to End if there is a candidate ‘n’ whose total exceeds the sum of ‘n+1’ to end. You’d select the screen which allowed you to eliminate the most candidates. After subsequent rounds of tabulation, you eliminate the trailing candidate each time and retabulate. You have as many rounds of tabulation as you need until the majority of the tally is behind one candidate for delegate. The results, including who the delegate was pledged to, would then be reported to the local board of elections and to the county Democratic Party.
As a Constitutional Law Professor, and a supposed Constitutional scholar, you should know the difference between a democracy and a republican form of government. The United States is not a democracy, and never has been, it’s a confederacy. A democracy is a decision making assembly, not a description of Union, and as a decision making assembly, democracy has specific requirements for assembly, distribution of Suffrage to reach Majority Consensus, quorum to operate, and predefined specifications for what constitutes a Majority Consensus for every category of decisions to be made.
This is why it is impossible to assemble and manage a democracy, and why a republican form of Government is superior. The requirement to assemble the People in their Collective Capacity through per capita proportional representation in a republican form of Government meets all the requirements of assembly and quorum that are impossible to meet in a democracy. In contrast to a republican form of Government, we in our American Democracy, managed to elect our last president in 2016 with the votes of 18% of the people in a 50:50 coin flip election of only Party choices. Not even hardly a democracy, or a democratic process, not meeting the requirements of quorum, at least 2/3 of the population must participate, or majority consensus where no candidate had the required majority consensus even of those who did participate, with one candidate only receiving 48% of the votes cast and the winner only having 46% of the votes cast, but somehow that was converted into an Electoral College majority that is supposed to be proportional to the people to be declared a winning majority!
Maybe instead of interpreting the constitution to justify the insanity and chaos we call partisan politics, you should spend more time studying the government that is constituted by the Constitution and why it’s superior to any governing system throughout history, including this anarchy and chaos we call American Democracy.
How typical of the Dimwits – another giant cluster f**k!
Not a Bernie fan here, but I am a fan of freedom and democracy. The Democrats in power are unhinged and dangerous. They have become increasingly worse each election year. They need to be held to account and prosecuted for election interference when they are caught this time. The DNC and Hillary got away with it in 2016, that’s why they are most likely to be doing it again.
IT SMELLS – The DEM powers to be are against Sanders – I am not a Sanders supporter but it SMELLS and when you mix in the Corrupt DEM POWERS TO BE and their desire to stop Sanders one has to question – How can they not come up with the votes? Makes no sense unless their is a RAT spelled DEM Leadership
Can’t read the ballots without a Russian translator…
Iowa Caucus 2020. To quote TIA, this is the Democratic Party. Perhaps not-so-simple arithmetic is an insurmountable chore for them.
There is too much money and attention on Iowa which generally picks the most liberal candidate. The Republican primary was neat and tidy in that the RNC didn’t allow any Trump competitors!
Well that’s just ridiculous. Walsh and Weld along with Mike Pence, David French and a few others actually got votes. Blather stupid stuff and you look pretty silly. Maybe you feel comfortable with that look. 🤪
French, wtf?
‘After the debacle in Iowa, WHERE NOT A SINGLE VOTE HAS BEEN REPORTED, it’s abundantly clear that Democrats are the single greatest threat to election security and integrity in this country. Not Trump, not Russia, not Ukraine. Democrats.’ @seanmdav
Has Stacey Abrams declared victory in Iowa yet? (sean davis)
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/02/iowa-caucus-results-failure-debacle-democrats.html
We’re about a week away from the New Hampshire primary.
If the Iowa Democratic Caucus results are still unknown at that point, maybe all of the candidates will claim victory in Iowa to boost their momentum going in to New Hampshire.
Superb comment and yes she has along with being elected Queen of Albania. Or king, who know.
The caucus procedure for democrats is outdated. The independence of secret balloting is lost which, in these times of intense partisanship, identity politics and extreme passion, leads to too much pressure. It can become closer to mob rule. The labyrinthian procedure itself has too many places where cheating is easier. The republican caucuses have simple secret ballots and the democrats should follow suit.
The Republicans were able to report the winner of their caucus, Donald J. Trump. However, the Des Moines Register spiked the last poll (maybe rightly) and now an app called Shadow does not work? And the phone lines do not work.
As an added plus, numbers for the Democratic caucus were down significantly.
Paul:
And they were few new attendees, i.e. young voters. Enthusiasm for the socialist Dims — not so much.
mespo – the demographic I saw showed the young as the largest group, almost half the attendees. This could be why Bernie won.