Sanders challenges Iowa results after Buttigieg projected as winner of delegate race

Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign on Monday asked the Iowa Democratic Party for a partial recanvass of 25 precincts, one day after state officials indicated Pete Buttigieg was the winner of the state delegate race.

Sanders’ campaign cited "widespread issues and miscalculations" of delegates in an email to reporters. It said if errors at 25 precincts and three satellite caucuses are corrected, Sanders would pick up an additional national delegate.

“While a recanvass is just the first step in the process and we don’t expect it to change the current calculations, it is a necessary part of making sure Iowans can trust the final results of the caucus,” Sanders' adviser Jeff Weaver said in a statement.

On Sunday, the Iowa Democratic Party released new results on Sunday that projected Buttigieg would capture two more state delegates than Sanders during last week’s chaotic caucuses.

The announcement comes almost a week after the first-in-the-nation nominating contest ended in mass confusion, mired by a buggy mobile phone app used to report results from 1,765 precincts forced the night to conclude without an apparent winner.

The results showed a tight race between Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who had 14 state delegates, and Vermont Sen. Sanders, who had 12. Sanders, however, won the popular vote, netting support from about 5,000 more caucus-goers than Buttigieg in the first expression of preferences. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren snagged third place, with eight delegates, while former Vice President Joe Biden received just six. Once projected to handily win the state, Biden called the loss a “gut punch.”

Sanders isn’t alone in requesting a recanvass: Last week, Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez called on Iowa party officials to immediately recanvass, or essentially perform a second-check of the vote. It would require the Iowa Democratic Party to review worksheets from each of the state’s precincts, he said.

"Enough is enough," Perez wrote in a tweet. "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."

In the week since the caucuses, both Buttigigeg and Sanders — who are currently battling for first in Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary — claimed victory, and the momentum bump that generally accompanies it.

Further complicating results were reports of inconsistencies and other flaws in the data, irregularities that could sow more uncertainty about the outcome.

According to a New York Times analysis, more than 100 precincts reported results that were “internally inconsistent," missing data or were impossible under the complex rules of the Iowa caucuses. In some cases, the Times reported, tallies did not add up, while in others, precincts are shown allotting the wrong number of delegates to certain candidates. Other times, the data provided by the state party do not match the same results released by the precinct.

The Times reported that there was no apparent bias in favor of either Sanders or Buttigieg.

State officials paid Shadow, a tech firm, more than $63,000 in two separate payments in November and December last year for "website development," according to state campaign finance records. Those payments were for the app the caucus site leaders were supposed to use to upload the results at their 1,765 precincts. But the system quickly broke down last Monday night, requiring the party to enter data manually once it was clear there was an issue.