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Was Bernie Sanders The Winner In Iowa?

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It could well be that Bernie Sanders won the Iowa Caucus popular vote, and not Hillary Clinton, as originally reported.The difficulty in determining this is the result of the Iowa Democratic Party refusal so far to disclose the popular Democratic vote at the February 1 caucus. Instead, the party reported the totals of who won the individual precincts across the state. (The Republican Party reports the popular vote in their caucus.) This produces a situation similar to the electoral college in the November elections. The person who is elected president then, according to the U.S. constitution,
must win a majority of electoral votes cast by the states in December. Several times, most recently in 2000, the person receiving the most votes did not win the election (cf. Bush vs. Gore).

In effect, the individual Democratic precincts in Iowa act as electors. But the precincts do vary considerably in size. Thus, a small rural precinct with 20 voters count as one vote as does an urban precincts which had a turnout of 500 voters. In fact, Bernie Sanders carried young Iowa voters by a large margin over Hillary Clinton, and turnout was reported as very heavy in Ames (Iowa State University) and Iowa City (University of Iowa), not to mention the many other college and university campuses throughout the state.

The only reasonable conclusion that can be drawn from the Democratic Party’s refusal to disclose the popular vote, in light of the very close vote (a virtual tie) counting only precincts, is that Mr. Sanders did indeed carry Iowa on February 1.

The state’s largest and most important daily newspaper, the Des Moines Register, has now called on the Democratic Party to conduct a recount. (There were also 6 precincts that were reportedly tied.)

In 2012, in the Republican Iowa caucus, it was initially reported that Mitt Romney won the election, but a recount revealed that Rick Santorum had actually won it. This recount was finished too late to help Mr. Santorum’s campaign.

The Democratic Party and its voters were understandably upset in 2000 when their presidential candidate received more than half a million votes more than the Republican nominee, and lost the election. In light of Mr. Sanders request for disclosure of the popular vote, and the Register’s call for a recount, the integrity of the Democratic Iowa caucus is at stake.A recount and disclosure of the popular vote is now the only way to resolve the doubt about the results which now exists.

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Copyright (c) 2016 by Barry Casselman. All rights reserved.

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