2020 Election Update 2/4

By Eva Lynch

This week, the results of the Iowa Caucus on Monday, and the technical difficulties that came with it, are the most recent focus of the 2020 presidential election.

Leading up to the first voting event of the 2020 election, many analysts predicted Senator Bernie Sanders to win Iowans’ preference for the Democratic primary nominee. Others predicted Warren, who has been campaigning in Iowa for the longest out of the candidates; and some predict an unexpected Klobuchar to finish in the top three due to her recently gained traction in Iowa.

Analysts also predicted high voter turnout—close to the record 240,000 voters in 2008—given the excitement among voters for the 2020 election. As votes began rolling in, they showed potentially low voter numbers.

The official results have not been announced yet, due to several issues with the voting system, as well as media involvement with the event.

First, the voting app, which was constructed to report regional results, was so flawed it incorrectly blocked certain officers from logging in, and ultimately broke down under the bottleneck of downloads. Soon after, more technology failed when the phone lines, which were also reporting regional results, were jammed.

Later, the media reported that there were “inconsistencies” with the number of collected votes being reported, which the party denied as separate auxiliary data being gathered as part of a new DNC policy towards transparency.

After these many pitfalls, the party called off their efforts to announce results Monday night and will instead announce them after they finish combing through the old-fashioned way.

President Trump won the Iowa Republican Caucus, easily defeating two lesser-known GOP opponents. These results were published less than a half hour after Republican Iowans began voting.