Iowa Caucuses Results Delayed for 'Quality Checks'

Democrats were beginning to worry late Monday because of delays in reporting results from the Iowa caucuses.

One aide to a top campaign told CNN that their operation "doesn't know what's going on," but worried that "something is clearly up ... it just eats time."

The Iowa Democratic Party said the results were delayed for efforts to ensure "quality control" before the data was to be released.

Iowa Democratic Party communucations director Mandy McClure said in a statement: "We found inconsistencies in the reporting of three sets of results. In addition to the tech systems being used to tabulate results, we are also using photos of results and a paper trail to validate that all results match and ensure that we have confidence and accuracy in the numbers we report. This is simply a reporting issue. The app did not go down and this is not a hack or an intrusion. The underlying data and paper trail is sound and will simply take time to further report the results."

According to The New York Times, McClure added that voter turnout for the caucuses "is on pace for 2016 but that the party is simply doing "quality checks" to make sure the numbers all add up.

He also said a new app used for reporting results was "a mess," leading organizers to have to call in results instead. Other precinct officers reported having trouble with the app, which was also designed to be used for tabluating reports, and said they abandoned it in favor of using the telephone hotline — another reason the reporting could have slowed down.

One aide to ex-South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who was leading in early results, told CNN the campaign is worried about the delay. 

Such quality checks could include comparing final results to presidential preference cards, as well as final results to check-in numbers.

According to reports, many precinct chairs across the state abandoned the new app that was built to help tabulate and report results as users struggled to log in. They opted instead to use the telephone hotline to report, which can also slow down the reporting of results.

Shawn Sebastian, a precinct secretary in Story County, called into CNN while on hold with the Democratic Party to report his county's results.

"I have been on hold for over an hour with the Iowa Democratic Party," he told anchor Wolf Blitzer, explaining that his county was not able to use the app.

At that moment, the hotline picked up, but while Sebastian tried to answer, the hotline went dead.

"They hung up on me," he told Blitzer.

CNN's David Chalian said the delays are making the results come in "far later than when we've seen reports in [past] Iowa caucuses."

"And so now, the party, they're sticking to this notion of we're doing quality control checks," he said. "I'm not sure how much longer they can just sort of say that and not have questions surrounding whether or not is there some reporting problem, is there something askew, or is everything fine and they're just being super cautious."

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