• USA. "Stop moving, the numbers don't fit!": Logistic nightmare in the Iowa caucuses
  • Keys: Guide to follow the Iowa primary

After what happened last night - local time - or in the early hours of today - Spain time - in the Democratic Party primaries with which the process of that party starts to find a candidate to dispute the White House to Donald Trump in November There is one clear thing: Vladimir Putin has no need to interfere in the US elections. That country is enough and there is plenty of his own talent to make his elections a chaos.

A chaos such that the results of the caucuses - a type of assembly in which the winner is chosen not by the votes, but by calculating by eye which candidate has more support - will not be known until today, with more than 12 hours of delay over The scheduled time.

The reason for the delay is that the mobile phone app used by the Democrats to transmit the results of their 1,681 schools to the party fell the most. And the telephone line designed as an alternative prays that eventuality, too. As a consequence, 'caucus' leaders cannot report their results . At midnight, five hours after the start of the caucuses, only 3% of the votes had been counted, when the Iowa Democratic Party hoped to have had all the results at 9 p.m.

It is not just a ridiculous astronomical proportion that questions the democratic ability to organize their own elections. It is also a blow to the legitimacy of the process. The new counting system had been demanded by candidate Bernie Sanders, who in 2016 lost in Iowa for only two tenths in other caucuses loaded with scandal, in this case of fraud in favor of the winner, Hillary Clinton. So what Sanders claimed was something basic in any election: that the Party will inform the people who have endorsed each candidate. Something common sense, but that had never been done.

Everything seems to indicate that, since the figures were going to be public, the volunteers who run the caucuses have taken more care than usual to tell who supports each person who comes to them. That has slowed down a process that, in itself, is already very complicated. And then the failure of the app has come , designed by Harvard University and the Shadow company, owned by the non-profit organization ACRONYM. The Iowa Democratic Party paid Shadow 54,000 euros ($ 60,000) for software that has not worked.

It is, therefore, a self-inflicted disaster that will have serious consequences in the other primary schools, especially due to the propensity of Sanders and his followers to conspiracy theories. To that is added an unmotivated electorate. The caucuses were attended by 170,000 people, a figure similar to that of 2016 and in line with expectations, but far from the 240,000 citizens of 2008, when the participation record was broken. Among Republicans, who hold normal primaries - that is, by vote - barely 30,000 people voted, 20% than in 2016. Donald Trump won with 96% of the vote.

The feeling of chaos was already visible within the caucus themselves. That was the case of the electoral college number 38, located on the 27th street of the state capital, Des Moines, whose chief responsible had to go to the crowd with a plea: "They have to stop moving! They are messing it up! The numbers don't fit, so I'm going to have to retell them. I'll do it as quickly as possible. "

In good time it occurred to Brad to be the president of the school, which is located in the sports center of the Drake University campus and, therefore, had very young voters. In good time and in good year: precisely in which the leaders of his party have announced that they would give the figures of the count. And there, poor Brad entered in anguish. And, with him, the other 1,680 presidents of Iowa Democratic polling stations.

A logistical nightmare

Counting the voters well - that is, the votes - became a logistical nightmare. Especially since voters can ask for explanations. It's what happened to Brad. Before the voters got together in groups that support each candidate (because in the caucuses they get together, but they don't vote), he had counted 400 people. When they formed the groups, 402 came out.

Had the attendees reproduced? Whatever the reason, that meant that the cut-off number from which the groups are "unviable" went from 60 to 61. Because to reach the second part of the caucus it is necessary for each group to reach at least 15% of the assistants.

Thus, caucuses are taking this year much longer than normal. It is the problem of democracy "that abuse of statistics", as defined by Jorge Luis Borges.

After more than an hour of caucus, Brad announced the candidates that were below 15%: Vice President with Obama Joe Biden, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, and Californian businessman Andrew Yang. His supporters then joined those who had exceeded that figure: Senators Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker, and the former mayor of the town of South Bend, Pete Buttigieg. That took another good half hour.

Two hours after the caucus began, Brad left the sports ground with the appearance of a man who is about to get dizzy in a boat (the phrase is from Hemingway). Shortly after he returned and announced the delegates that each candidate had achieved: Warren and Buttigieg, two each; and Sanders one, just like Booker.

What Brad didn't say was the votes of each candidate in his polling station. Paradoxically, that was told by CNN. That is to say: the whole US learned except those directly affected. How that television knew it and not the assistants to the caucus remain for the annals of the mysteries of the Iowa primaries.

The chaos of college 38 was representative of what is happening throughout Iowa. Also, some of the results seem to be repeating elsewhere, especially the little support for Biden and, to some extent, Sanders. For now, however, there is still a long way until there are results worthy of the name.

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