Last Monday, Feb. 3, marked the tallying of the annual Iowa Caucus—the first primary to determine who will be running for president. Chaos engulfed the party and has left some questioning the actions of the Democratic National Committee.

The problems for the Iowa Democratic Party started when the phone app they had designed for the caucus began to malfunction, leaving officials to report results to the caucus headquarters by phone; party officials would then input the results into a computer manually.

However, it was soon discovered in order to properly input the results from the canvassing that a pin was needed—one that could only be retrieved from a mobile device. Because of the debacle with the app, the Nevada Democratic Party has announced that it will no longer plan to use the app for its own canvassing on Feb. 22.

“The reporting of the results and circumstances surrounding the 2020 Iowa Party caucuses was unacceptable,” said Iowa Democratic Chairman Troy Price. “As chair of the party, I apologize deeply.”

Troy continued, “We’re going to have a thorough and independent review of exactly what happened last night. We’re still in the process of getting these results out, and that’s what we’re going to focus on.”

When results for the caucus were slowly released Tuesday night, candidates Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg were neck-and-neck, while other nominees trailed behind. Pete Buttigieg finished the caucus with 26.2% of the vote and was appointed 13 delegates. Bernie Sanders finished the caucus with 26.1% of the vote and received 12 delegates. Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden trailed behind with eight and six delegate respectively, while Amy Klobuchar received one delegate.

However the scandal didn’t stop with the faulty reporting app. According to many news agencies, Bernie Sanders was ahead of Pete Buttigieg in the popular vote by nearly 6,000 votes, leading some to question why Sanders wasn’t appointed the “winner” of the caucus.

“It’s incredibly frustrating and disturbing and hypocritical of the Democratic Party to spend the last three years complaining about how Hillary Clinton won the popular vote but lost the electoral college and then award Pete Buttigieg the most delegates when he lost the popular vote by nearly six thousand votes,” said Drury sophomore James Fitzpatrick. “Overall the whole thing is very indicative of how far the DNC is willing to go from keeping Bernie from being the nominee.”

Over the next several months, primaries will be held across the nation.

Article by Ryan Smith