WASHINGTON: The chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party resigned on Wednesday after the state’s chaotic first-in-the-nation presidential nomination contest, calling the technology problems and questionable accuracy of the process “unacceptable”. Pete Buttigieg ultimately won the Iowa caucuses two weeks ago, in a narrow victory over Bernie Sanders. But the delayed results were marred by multiple technical issues, and the Sanders campaign has asked for a “recanvassing” check of the vote.

On caucus night, people who support a given candidate literally stand together in part of a caucus site to show their support. For the 2020 election cycle, Troy Price and his party had implemented new rules that were supposed to ensure greater transparency and efficiency in the voting process.

A new app distributed to precinct officials was supposed to help them report results more quickly, but a “coding error” threw the process into complete disarray.

Published in Dawn, February 14th, 2020