The Des Moines Register - Iowa's largest newspaper, which endorsed Hillary Clinton for president - published an editorial Wednesday titled "Something Smells in the Democratic Party," calling for a "complete audit" of the Iowa Democratic caucuses to ensure that the results are accurate.
"The results were too close not to do a complete audit of results," the editorial board of the Register wrote, three days after Clinton narrowly edged out Sen. Bernie Sanders by 0.2 percentage points, a margin that would lead to recounts in other states.
Questions have been raised over possible voter fraud and missing votes, and Andy McGuire, the chairwoman of the Iowa Democratic Party, has refused to work with Sanders' campaign to verify results, which only "confirm the suspicions," the newspaper wrote. The Sanders camp has already found inconsistencies as it makes its way from precinct to precinct checking results, and it is now attempting to obtain the math sheets and other paperwork that was supposed to be returned to the state party, according to Sanders spokeswoman Rania Batrice.
"What happened Monday night at the Democratic caucuses was a debacle, period. Democracy, particularly at the local party level, can be slow, messy and obscure. But the refusal to undergo scrutiny or allow for an appeal reeks of autocracy," the paper wrote.
"Too many questions have been raised. Too many accounts have arisen of inconsistent counts, untrained and overwhelmed volunteers, confused voters, cramped precinct locations, a lack of voter registration forms and other problems. Too many of us, including members of the Register editorial board who were observing caucuses, saw opportunities for error amid Monday night's chaos."
To help settle the matter, the Register's editors ask the Democratic Party to "work with all the campaigns to audit results. Break silly party traditions and release the raw vote totals" as well as the results of coin tosses. But the party has avoided doing so.
Unfortunately, a Democratic official told The Hill on Monday that a full recount is impossible because of the way Iowa caucuses are run. The process involves voters physically dividing themselves into groups around the room to show support for a candidate. They are then counted by precinct captains, and assigned delegates. In the event of a tie, a coin is flipped. The delegate-allocation system effectively keeps anti-establishment candidates like Sanders, who wasn't even a Democrat a few months ago, from winning the popular vote, according to Breitbart.
A number of delegates were awarded by a coin toss, but the Register says that the results it found are different from the ones described by the party. The Register discovered that six coin tosses definitely occurred, and possible a seventh, with Clinton reported as winning all six. The party, however, claims that seven coin flips occurred and that Sanders won six.
The Register concluded by saying that the "future of the first-in-the-nation caucuses demands" a full audit.
