Thread by @benrileysmith

THREAD

Just waking up in UK? The Democratic Iowa caucus descended into a farce over night. Here's what happened...

Everything appeared to be going swimmingly. Voting at 1,700ish different precincts began at 7pm. Lots of jolly scenes of people switching after first ballot, etc.

Then we resulted for the result....

And waited. And waited. The banners on the cable news turned from 'unexpected delay' to 'questions asked' as the Iowa Democratic Party was hounded for an explanation.

Reports started filtering in that the phone app precincts had been encouraged to use to send in their results was playing up.

Then the back-up phone line they could call results in was swamped, leading to hour+ delays with people stuck on hold.

Eventually a full-ish statement was issued by the Iowa Dems. They said there hadn't been a hack or interference.

Nor, apparently, had the app totally crashed. Instead there were 'inconsistencies' with the 3 different sets of results.

This is where it gets complicated. Rules were changed this year. They agreed to announce

a) first round vote shares
b) second round vote shares [after supporters of candidates who did badly could move]
c) final delegates, which are distributed based on vote shares in 2nd round

All of that meant that NO WINNER has been declared yet. Despite it approaching 2am here in Iowa.

It has also led to the ludicrous situation that all 5 leading candidates [Biden, Bernie, Buttigieg, Warren, Klobuchar] have done speeches claiming positives and moved on to New Hampshire without a result called.

This is bad news for Bernie and Buttigieg. Both appeared to be doing v well from early indications.

Bernie proclaimed a 'very, very good' night. Buttigieg said he had been 'victorious'. But both robbed of any big moment because of lack of result.

Reversely, Biden appeared to be doing badly [though again, these were only early indications].

It's telling his team rushed out a letter slamming the Iowa Dems before any other team.

Thinking seemed clear - ham up the idea it was all chaos, play down significance of result.

We may get results on Tuesday. Or we may not. Nobody knows. Sounds like they're looking at physical ballots [which will be more than 200,000.] So could take a while.

All in all, an utter farce. [The End]

If you want to read more...

Chaos reigns
telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/02/0…

Candidate reactions
telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/02/0…

Pollster's analysis
telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/02/0…

Relive the night
telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/02/0…

@Telegraph @TelegraphWorld