What really went wrong on Iowa caucus night? Inside the problems that led to results being delayed
Kim NorvellDES MOINES — For two magical hours, the new and improved 2020 Iowa Democratic caucus worked almost exactly as intended.
People caucused Monday night in less time than four years ago, when participants grumbled that the process was too long. There was less infighting among the groups aligned for their candidates.
Indeed, many caucusgoers and their precinct chairs wrapped up caucus night saying they felt good about the changes put in place to make the selection process simpler and more inclusive.
And then the precinct chairs tried to report their results to the Iowa Democratic Party — and everything ground to a halt.
"Everyone who was in the room caucusing should have left with a smile on their face," said Dan Callahan, chair of the Buchanan County Democrats. "It was efficient. It was fun. We did what we were supposed to do — we built a party platform and we picked a presidential candidate.
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"It was after everybody left that the problems started."
In county after county across Iowa, the same thing happened, according to interviews with 20 Democratic Party chairs around the state.
All the corrective changes the party had put in place to shore up the credibility of the Iowa caucuses quickly were overshadowed by zero results reported nearly 24 hours after caucusing began.
Iowa caucuses: Live Democratic results and alignment tallies
The Iowa Democratic Party has blamed the delay on a coding issue in a new smartphone app used to report results. But precinct chairs said an overwhelmed reporting hotline that was intended as a backup was also at fault.
Troy Price, state party chair, said in a statement the "underlying data" collected on the app reported only partial data. The error was caught early Monday as precinct caucus results started coming in, and the Iowa Democratic Party ran them through accuracy and quality checks.
Price added that precinct chairs have reported data accurately, but it took time to hand count and finalize the results.
As of 11 a.m. Wednesday, the Iowa Democratic Party has released 70.82% of the results. Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg led U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont by just more than 1 percentage point — a virtual tie — but both had been awarded 10 of Iowa's national delegates needed to win the Democratic nomination.
Failure on two levels
Monday's failures could not be blamed on just one thing.
First, precinct chairs who opted to use the app were having trouble submitting data and/or completing the entire process.
Many reported the app crashing when they got to the final step — sending a photo of the math worksheet.
In several counties, precinct chairs opted not to use the app, citing wireless connections in rural areas, lack of smartphones or downloading trouble in the days leading to caucus night.
This meant precinct chairs either chose to or were forced to call in their results — which led to the second failure.
The Iowa Democratic Party did not have enough people manning the phones to handle an influx of calls, despite that being the standard process in past years — and despite hearing concerns of the app’s functionality days before caucusing started.
"The big problem was they didn’t have a good Plan B in place in case there was a problem with the app," said Betty Brummett, co-chair of the Taylor County Democrats. "They weren't set up to handle 1,600 people trying to call in at the same time."
Why didn't the app work?
Party chairs surveyed by the Des Moines Register said there was little-to-no training on how to use the new app by the Iowa Democratic Party.
Instead, volunteers were instructed to test using it on their own.
Because of its secure nature, it was not downloaded on an app store like games or other social networking apps are.
Instead, volunteers had to apply to download it, then follow multiple security prompts, including inputting a PIN that changed every few days.
"I think the feeling that we wanted to make sure it was secure and no one’s hacking into it just added enough complexity to make it hard for people to navigate," said Bret Niles, chair of the Linn County Democrats, which covers Cedar Rapids, Iowa's second-largest city.
Some were locked out of the app completely on caucus night.
Others, who had successfully practiced on the app in the week leading up to caucus night, watched it crash when they attempted to input data.
David Mansheim, former chair of the Butler County Democrats, said precinct chairs in his county got all the way through the process before it shut down.
Steve Drahozal, chair of the Dubuque County Democrats, said he received an error message that he had omitted some numbers when, in double-checking, it revealed he hadn't.
"It looked like it was going to work — until it didn’t," Mansheim said. "Which things often do when you put them under stress."
He said one of his county's eight precinct chairs was able to report results using the app. The rest resorted to calling.
In some areas, such as rural Buchanan County, precinct chairs never planned to use the app to begin with. Many of the volunteers still use flip phones and live in areas "with limited WiFi and intermittent cell coverage," Callahan said.
In far southeast Van Buren County, none of the county's precinct leaders have smartphones, said Twyla Peacock, county chair. She told party leaders about that issue well in advance and said they were directed by the Iowa Democratic Party to call with results.
"I'm 77 years old, and some of these technology things are foreign to me. I prefer the old way," Peacock said. "If we had done it the old way, instead of trying to get into the next century, we would have turned out fine."
The Iowa Democratic Party said there's "every indication" the app was secure; there was no cyber intrusion or hacking of the system.
How long were phone wait times?
County chairs reported wait times between 15 minutes and 2 hours. It appears the earlier results were called in, the quicker precincts could wrap up reporting.
But around 9 p.m., a bottleneck formed.
After waiting on hold with the Iowa Democratic Party for 45 minutes to report results via telephone, Elesha Gayman asked her precinct chairs in Scott County to drop off their results in person so she could call it in as a group. She gathered what she had — 39 of 63 precincts — and called the Iowa Democratic Party at 1:30 a.m.
It took about 90 minutes to make that report, Gayman said, noting that under a rule change for 2020, each precinct had to report three sets of numbers:
- The number of caucusgoers for each candidate in the first alignment;
- The number for each candidate in the second alignment, after non-viable candidates were eliminated;
- And the number of state delegate equivalents assigned to each candidate based on those results.
"It's not just like you're calling in one number — it's first alignment, second alignment and the state delegates. And they're putting in a whole math formula to back that up," Gayman said. "I do think that's important for transparency to have that information, but it just makes it that much harder to report quickly."
Al Charlson, chair of the Bremer County Democrats, said he waited on hold for an hour Monday before his phone call dropped. He waited another hour before he could get results in.
Because of the wait, several precincts waited to report until Tuesday. Representatives from the Iowa Democratic Party fanned across the state to pick up hard copies of results throughout the day.
"The minimum wait time was an hour. Some waited up to two hours," said Mansheim of Butler County. "One went to bed and phoned it in the morning."
In Union County, where several caucus precincts were in one building, chairs resorted to splitting phone duties.
"One person got through to the hotline after about 30 to 45 minutes," said Tiffany Gale, chair of the Union County Democrats. "After he reported his results, he passed the phone to someone else, and they reported. That’s how we did it."
She said the telephone reporting system took about 10 minutes, after the initial wait time to get through.
What did work?
Several people praised the efficiency of the new caucus process — limiting caucusgoers to only a first and second alignment instead of the unlimited reshuffling in previous years.
They also praised the new presidential preference cards, which caucusgoers used to write down their choices and sign their names. It's those cards that have given the Iowa Democratic Party confidence in the integrity of its results.
"Because of the required paper documentation, we have been able to verify that the data recorded in the app and used to calculate State Delegate Equivalents is valid and accurate," Price, the state party chair, said in a statement.
"I personally loved the presidential preference card because it was just nice to have that visual," said Thaddeus Hawley, chair of the Adair County Democrats. "In the end, the paper trail will save us."
But in the hours without any caucus results, the drumbeat of calls to replace Iowa as the lead-off state — which started months ago — grew more persistent.
More: Iowa Republicans defend state Democrats after caucus mishaps
Concerns over diversity and inclusion have risen to the forefront this caucus cycle as a presidential field that was at one point the most diverse in history has winnowed to a mostly white pool of candidates.
The problems with Monday's results have shifted the focus back to Iowa's arcane rules and complex process.
Several county chairs still believe the caucus process is viable, particularly given the state's new rules. If the Iowa Democratic Party can stick to new rules and figure out reporting, 2024 could present a successful caucus cycle, Hawley said.
Regardless, Niles, out of Linn County, said he fears reporting failures will jeopardize the state's first-in-the-nation caucus status.
"I could see where if there were questions before, this is going to make it even harder to defend that," he said. "With all the effort and time and money that went into these campaigns and all the training … I’m disappointed, going through all this effort to have this big moment, and now that moment has passed without results."
Register reporter Barbara Rodriguez and USA Today network reporters Kevin McCoy, Rebecca Morin, Dennis Wagner and Donovan Slack contributed to this story.
Kim Norvell covers growth and development for the Register. Reach her at knorvell@dmreg.com or 515-284-8259. Follow her on Twitter @KimNorvellDMR.