Iowa Democrats extend recanvass deadline, allow reporting of inconsistencies
The Iowa Democratic Party on Friday announced that it would extend its deadline for candidates to call for a recanvass until Monday and allow campaign to submit evidence of inconsistencies in reporting.
Iowa Democratic Party Chair Troy Price discusses the Iowa caucuses in an interview for The Daily Iowan at Prairie Lights on Friday, May 5, 2019. (Jenna Galligan)
February 7, 2020
The Iowa Democratic Party announced Friday it would extend the deadline for candidates to call for a recanvass and allow campaigns to submit evidence of inconsistencies in caucus results reporting.
The state party’s Delegate Selection Plan dictates that presidential candidates can submit a request for a recanvass of results. The party moved the deadline from Friday at noon to Monday at noon.
Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez called for a recanvass on Thursday, following several reports of inconsistencies between caucus results and delegate allocation.
Enough is enough. In light of the problems that have emerged in the implementation of the delegate selection plan and in order to assure public confidence in the results, I am calling on the Iowa Democratic Party to immediately begin a recanvass.
— Tom Perez (@TomPerez) February 6, 2020
However, in a press conference Friday, Iowa Democratic Party Chair Troy Price said the party will only perform a recanvass if a candidate calls for it.
“One of my north stars has always been that we must follow the rules that we have, and so the rules state that the person who can request a recanvass is a candidate themselves,” he said.
A recanvass would involve Iowa Democratic Party workers manually reviewing each of the more than 1,700 precinct site worksheets and matching them against the reported results. Several inconsistencies have cropped up between caucus worksheets and the party’s official delegate allocation since the results began to be reported on Tuesday.
Campaigns will have the opportunity to submit evidence of any inconsistencies to the Iowa Democratic Party for correction. These submissions will be due by Saturday at noon.
Price also said in the press conference that the party would undergo an investigation into the caucus process to identify what went wrong.
“This review is completely independent of myself, or the executive director of the party, our vice chairs, our caucus director and staff of the Iowa Democratic Party,” he said.
Price did not offer a timeframe for when the investigation would be completed.
