To the editor:

What an embarrassment for the Iowa Democratic Party. The Democratic candidates and the media left Iowa Monday night not knowing who won the Iowa caucuses.

The means of reporting caucus results was a disaster to say the least. I watched with interest just how those of the television networks would react. They showed great patience, but there were signs of growing frustration with the Iowa Democratic Party as the night wore on and numbers were not released. I have a feeling some around the country brushed it all off as what they expected from Iowa. After all it was Iowa, a fly-over state that the Democrats in New York and California think doesn’t matter.

All the Democratic candidates packed up and jumped on their charter flights and headed for New Hampshire, not knowing who won. But if you listened to the remarks said by each before they left you would have thought they all won. And then almost 24 hours later on Tuesday only 62% of the vote was released. If those in charge say they wanted accuracy over speed, 62% doesn’t exactly provide accuracy, especially when the top two, Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders, were only 2 percentage points apart. After the 62% tally was released Buttigieg led Sanders but only in the delegate count. Sanders led in the popular vote count. If the result after the full 100% is released remains that way, Buttigieg could claim victory because he won the most delegates, but Sanders could claim victory because he won the popular vote. How ironic that would be. I believe they both want to abolish the Electoral College because in 2016 the popular vote getter lost to the Electoral College winner. But what happened in Iowa may be just like 2016.

Something seemed wrong with the way the Iowa caucus vote would be taken. A first vote is taken and then those candidates without 15 % of the vote are considered “non-viable”, and those that supported a non-viable candidate can then go and cast their next vote for someone else, or I guess they can remain as “non committed”. Those that supported a candidate that was non-viable and then were encouraged to vote for someone else saw that their original vote did not count. Another irony. I thought the Democrats were all for “your vote should count”.

But then, I am sure Trump will somehow be blamed.

Chuck Peterson

Fort Dodge