Election 2020: What Went Wrong At The Iowa Caucuses? New App Creates Fiasco

Update: 1:18 p.m. EST

Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who decided against running in the early states to concentrate on Super Tuesday, took advantage of the Iowa chaos Tuesday, increasing his ad buy.

Campaign manager Kevin Sheekey said a confused outcome in Iowa and the three other early states -- New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada -- opens a pathway for Bloomberg, who is self-funding his campaigh, to capture the 2020 Democratic nomination.

Meanwhile, Sen. Bernie Sanders' campaign released partial data indicating he captured 29% of the vote.

Update: 12:30 p.m. EST

Iowa Democratic party officials said Tuesday they would release the caucus results by 5 p.m.

Original story

Democratic party officials in Iowa Tuesday scrambled to figure out what went wrong at the first-in-the-nation caucuses and promised to finally report the results later in the day.

The delay sent candidates on to New Hampshire and the first-in-the-nation primary next Tuesday with no clear winner.

With no hard numbers available late Monday, South Bend (Ind.) Mayor Pete Buttigieg, relying on internal data, declared victory, projecting he captured 22% to 25% of the vote and 28% of the delegates awarded.

“Iowa, you have shocked the nation because by all indications, we are going on to New Hampshire victorious,” Buttigieg declared.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar also sounded an optimistic note.

"We know one thing: We are punching above our weight,” she said.

“Today marks the beginning of the end for Donald Trump,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, who went into the caucuses leading in opinion polls.

Elizabeth Warren said the results are too close to call but Democrats are “closer to defeating the most corrupt president in American history.”

State party officials blamed the debacle on a new app for reporting the results. To compound the problem, the backup phone line for calling in the results crashed. Party officials were careful to say the problem was not the result of hacking and also blamed new rules requiring three numbers instead of one to be reported at the county level.

"This is simply a reporting issue … [not] a hack or an intrusion,” said Mandy McClure, the state party’s communications director.

“We were dealing with what we thought were sporadic reporting issues,” Polk County Democrats chairman Sean Bagniewski told the Des Moines Register. "Then it became the norm for the evening."

Former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign said Americans deserve “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."

Instead of reporting real-time results, county organizations collected boxes of precinct preference cards for hand counting. Party Chairman Troy Price said the party is determined to protect the integrity of the results. He blamed the fiasco on a coding error.

Republicans, including President Trump, gloated over the problems. Trump called Democrats incompetent and incorrectly alleged they had blamed Russia for the fiasco.

Trump handily won the Republican caucuses, capturing 97.1% of the vote and all of the available delegates.

Iowa’s status as the kickoff site for the campaign season has come under sharp criticism since the state sends just 1% of the delegates to the nominating convention. The state also is considered not diverse enough to represent the rest of the nation.