Santorum Tops Romney in Iowa Caucus 'Split Decision' (Santorum won by 34 votes)

national journal ^ | January 19, 2012 | Niraj Chokshi

[Brown Deer]

A recount of the Jan. 3 Iowa Republican caucus results has Rick Santorum leading Mitt Romney in the race for the GOP presidential nomination by 34 votes, with data from 8 precincts missing and never to be certified, GOP officials told The Des Moines Register on Wednesday. Despite Santorum's advantage, the state Republican party views the results as a wash.

[Grunthor]

That is what I was thinking. If those votes are missing never to be found then Rick won by far more than 34 votes.

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

No. It was neither a primary nor a winner take all State.

[bigdirty]

When shit like this happens it really gives the impression there’s vote rigging and corruption in play to get Romney the nomination.

[Personal Responsibility]

Despite Santorum’s advantage, the state Republican party views the results as a wash.

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When Romney won by 8 votes it was “A win is a win” but now that Santorum has won it’s “a wash”. And you wonder why people hate the Republican establishment!

[dools007]

Yep, it was a caucus thing. Thanks. You answered my question.

Given there was no talk of a split when Romney(care) thought he won by 8 votes, it’s amazing Santorum did as well as he did. Obviously he was fighting the entire Iowa demrat-controlled RINO establishment.

[Personal Responsibility]

What is so hard about logging the total number of ballots cast in each precinct, tallying them, checking the math, put all the ballots in a sealed envelope and report the results to a central location.The sealed envelope is held by a designated person for one month in case of recounts, or sent to a central location, and logged in.

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If they do it your way it is extremely hard to cheat in order to ensure victory for the person they want to win.

[Jordo]

“And in calling this a tie, the RNC is now as corrupt as the DNC. “

Please get your facts straight. The RNC (Republican National Committee) didn’t have anything to do with it. It was the Republican Party of Iowa. That’s clear from the Des Moines Register article.

[redgolum]

Because Romney will be the nominee. No matter what.

He is weak enough to be beat by Obama, and that is what the GOP wants.

[Personal Responsibility]

You forgot the Establishment headline:

The People have spoken The race is over. Romney's the nominee!

[liberalh8ter]

Why wasn’t it a “split decision” when Mittens was up by 8? I’m seriously getting sick of the pitiful and corrupt election process in this Country. America trotted the globe bringing Democracy to the oppressed only to show that we are the antithesis of the very system we espoused.

[exit82]

If they do it your way it is extremely hard to cheat in order to ensure victory for the person they want to win.

What the heck was I thinking? ;)

BTW, the map you posted in post 49 is excellent, and needs its own thread. It puts everything in perspective.

[OPS4]

Rick Santorum for President 2012

[Jordo]

“Why wasn’t it a “split decision” when Mittens was up by 8? I’m seriously getting sick of the pitiful and corrupt election process in this Country. “

Because there was NO decision at all at that time. The 8-vote Romney “win” was trumpeted by the press. The state Republican party did NOT say Romney won, they said there was no official result and there wouldn’t be for quite some time. The press almost totally ignored that statement.

There seems to be plenty of incompetence and/or corruption in the state party, but don’t blame them for something done by the press and Romney’s supporters.

[ohioWfan]

I knew it!

[Proud2BeRight]

When the liberal RINO was in the lead by 8, they went yelling “WINNER” at the top of their lungs over and over and over again. Each time the RINO was in a story it was "The winner of Iowa" blah blah blah. Now the final count comes in and Santorum WON by four times the old differential and the Yahoo headlines says “Santorum “may” have won, the RINO now calls it a tie, and this article calls it “a wash”.

Oh, how I despise liberalism's spin.

[JohnBovenmyer]

The Des Moines Register has a fair amount of detail and is mostly practicing journalism here.

They link to a spreadsheet with the precinct breakdown for the 1766 precincts they were able to certify. That spreadsheet verified my surmise that whatever the votes were in the other 8 non-certified precincts, they are not being counted. They're not even lines on the spreadsheet. Hopefully someone will perform further journalism and discover what went wrong. As of this posting the Iowa GOP site hasn't been updated today; the Register is the only site with data posted.

I don't have time for a full comparison now, but a glance at the "certified" spread sheet in comparison to the one posted after "Mitt won" revealed a couple interesting points.

First, they broke down the voting by others in more detail. Sarah Palin only received 23 votes statewide. Cain received 45. Some much for their hopes of resurrection.

Second, although they aren't providing totals from the 8 "non-certified" precincts now, their unofficial results were provided earlier this month and if unchanged would provide Santorum with an additional 35 vote margin:

46 Romney
81 Santorum
64 Paul
30 Gingrich
31 Perry
15 Bachman
2 Huntsman
269 Total

So although they are now saying Santorum 'won' in the 99.5% complete 'final' tally, had it been 100% the best available data suggests he really won by about 69 votes. The size and trend of those 8 unofficially counted precincts makes it fairly likely that Santorum really did win Iowa.

So we're off to an interesting day. Santorum flips Mitt in Iowa. Perry reported to be dropping out. Newt gets dropped on by ex #2 tonight and what will likely be an interesting debate tonight. I'm off to work so will be offline awhile.

[liberalh8ter]

The state Republican party did NOT say Romney won, they said there was no official result and there wouldn’t be for quite some time.

Really? I guess having the Chairman of the Iowa Republican Party, Matthew Strawn, declare Romney the winner isn't good enough, huh?

 Iowa announcement    

[throwback]

It is interesting that you can hardly find the headline “Santorum Wins Iowa” on Google. It's also interesting that a bunch of votes go missing. I guess it's the only way Romney or Paul could taint the win, so they took it. Oh well, at least Mitt has to shut up about winning 2 states now, although he benefited by being the the inevitable nominee for some time. I'm for Santorum, but I hope Newt takes his pound of flesh out of the media during the debate tonight for the hit piece ABC's running on him tonight. This media, what a bunch of lying pigs.

[Brown Deer]

romney wins iowa caucus
About 57,200,000 results (0.20 seconds)

santorum wins iowa caucus
About 89,400 results (0.31 seconds)

[Lazlo in PA]

Santorum for President Ping List.

FReepmail “Antoninus” to be added or removed.that up.