Thread by @LuluFriesdat

Thread. 1. Reposting these images now with the title
"Iowa Math is the #NewMath." In my original post I called these #RoundingErrors. But they are not errors. This is exactly the way the Iowa Democratic Party wants the votes to be counted. #IowaCaucus
smartelections.us/iowa-new-math

2. From my post: "Because of the way the math was done at the caucuses, many precincts wound up with an extra delegate that got 'assigned' to one of the candidates at the end of the caucus. We were able to look at worksheets from 18 precincts that were posted on Twitter." #Iowa

3. "We found a strange process where numbers below .5 were being rounded up in multiple precincts. 6 of the precincts (1/3) had the unusual 'rounding up.' Of the 6 precincts with the "rounding up" - 4 were given to Buttigieg, 2 to Biden, and 1 to Warren. #IowaCaucuses #NewMath

4. "We posted the results on Twitter, and at that point received an explanation about the math. We had originally called them 'Rounding Errors.' But it turns out they are not rounding errors. This is exactly the way that the Iowa Democratic Party wants the votes to be counted."

5. "As seen above in the instructions on page 15 of the Precinct Leader Manual, if there are extra delegates after the 2nd round of voting, the extra delegates are assigned to the candidate with the 'highest decimal below 0.5.' " #NewMath #IowaCaucuses

6. "There doesn't appear to be any fraud here. Just a bizarre and arcane set of rules." #NewMath #IowaCaucuses

7. It's possible that because of the way the math is being done, more of these extra delegates are being generated. The candidates' totals are being divided not by the number of voters who stay till the end & vote, but by the original number of ppl who show up. #IowaCaucuses

8. Multiple people online say this is not a problem, but it violates one of the basic principles of #elections: that the number of voters has to match the number of cast votes. The Caucus math has a different number of voters than votes cast on many of the worksheets #IowaCaucus

9. I spoke yesterday w/ Doug Jones, a comp sci prof at Univ. of Iowa. Jones has been active in the election reform movement for two decades & is a co-author of Broken Ballots - Will Your Vote Count? “If you follow the rules as written the math doesn't add up," he said. #NewMath

10. Looking at Cedar County FM as an example of the way the formula was implemented, he pointed out, "Basically everyone who left early was counted as Buttigieg, because of the way it rounded." His overall assessment was, "The rules as written don't lead to a sensible result.”

11. "This simply isn't any way to run an election. I shouldn't need to stay up all night trying to figure out how some ridiculously archaic rule works & have thousands of people debating whether it's inaccurate or just obscure." #NewMath #IowaCaucusResults smartelections.us/iowa-new-math

12. "Elections need to be straight-forward and easy for people to follow. Not some sort of byzantine calculation that only the initiated high priests of caucus history are able to navigate." #IowaCaucusResults #SMARTelections

13. "What is great about the Iowa Caucus is that all the votes are hand written on durable paper, so we can trust that they represent the voter's intent & ultimately we can observe, and hopefully, understand how they have been counted." #IowaCaucusResults #HandMarkedPaperBallots

14. "We need durable #HandMarkedPaperBallots in all elections for everyone who is able to use them. And we need secure devices that create durable & easily understood paper ballots for voters with disabilities. Not thermal paper ballots that are read with barcodes or QR codes."

15. The #IowaCaucus was changed so we can see what's going on. Good. Next year we could have 1 vote per person & the #election could be run by a non-partisan election commission like in Australia, instead of a party that's repeatedly shown bias. #Reform
washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/w…

16. According to their website, the Australian Electoral Commission, “places special emphasis on political neutrality” to provide Australians with “an independent electoral service.” aec.gov.au/employment/AEC… #SMARTelections #ElectionReform

17. In an email, Professor @PippaN15 of Harvard agreed that political parties running U.S. Elections is a “pure conflict of interest.” Adding that, “In established democracies there are normally ... election commissions,” with, “neutral and impartial professional civil servants.”

@PippaN15 18. This matters. About 1/3 of the precincts we looked at decided a delegate using this "rounding up" rule. If 1/3 of the over 1600 precincts decide 1 delegate this way, that's approx 500 delegates. @PeteButtigieg & @SenSanders
are now 4 delegates apart. results.thecaucuses.org