Iowa Republicans to call caucus result split decision

Reuters via Yahoo News ^ | 19 Jan 2012 | Reuters

[edpc]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Iowa Republican Party will certify this month's presidential caucuses as a split decision between former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, citing missing data from eight precincts, the Des Moines Register reported on Thursday.

[CSI007]

The entire GOP is in the tank for progressive Republicans. This announcement is no surprise.

Wake up conservatives, wake up!

[magritte]

Iowa is all “Soft unpledged” delegates. Here’s the breakdown:

Romney - 6
Santorum - 6
Paul - 6
Gingrich - 4
Perry - 3

Iowa was essentially a 3-way tie from the get-go.

[TexasFreeper2009]

lol

If Romney wins by 8... it’s a HISTORIC victory!

If Romney loses by 34... it’s a split decision!

I hate the media, the RNC, and Romney. The whole lot of them are not worth a bucket full of spit!

[Sgt_Schultze]

Both Iowa and New Hampshire are reliably democrat states. It’s way past time for the Republican party to allow only reliably republican voters to choose their own candidate.

[Whats-wrong-with-the-truth]

> "It's a split decision," the newspaper said, citing a party official in the state. There are too many holes in the certified total from the caucuses to know for certain who won, it said.

>> When Romney was declared the winner, it was a "squeaker." When Santorum comes out the winner, the process "has holes."

>>>When the RINO Romney 'wins' Iowa he's declared the Republican Presidential Nominee. When Santorum 'wins' Iowa it's called a tie? WTH?

Bottom line... Romney's no better than McCain/Obama. MO

[edpc]

Who, then? According to a Gallup poll last Feb, the reddest red state was Mississippi. Barbour has been disappointing in a lot of ways. Not sure I'd rely on them. The same could be said for other places.

Even in closed primaries, there's potential for chicanery. In an election year like this one, where the incumbent is an unchallenged liberal, there's opportunity for a reverse Operation Chaos.

[ScottinVA]

I completely agree. This all just plays into Obama’s hands so neatly. Remember all the articles months ago about Obama being “toast,” and how he was ripe for defeat? Not seeing those now.

Rush theorizes the GOP is surrendering the Presidential race while pushing Mitt while holding out hope it can attract enough mushy-middle voters to eke out a majority in the Senate.

At this point, the heady days of optimism long past, I think even the House is in jeopardy. Romney doesn’t excite anyone except democrats who had previously thought THEY were taking on water.

[ScottinVA]

Of course that makes sense—if you're running a fair election with a well-documented paper trail. Obviously the RNC, etc. isn't interested in that.

And when democrat voter fraud swings the election to Obama in November, the RNC won't have a friggin' leg to stand on.

[Doofer]

I know he has some votes that I would rather he not have voted for. However, you have to remember we had a Republican Congress and President. Had he said no to some of these votes, he would have been criticized on Free Republic by some for not being supportive of President Bush. I know for a fact that is true.

Sorry Chief he's a sell out....

[Old Retired Army Guy]

The whole Caucus process smells of back room/smoke filled room politics. The Party should ban caucuses in favor of primary elections restricted to people that are registered voters with that party at least 90 days before the election.

[World'sGoneInsane]

Iowa was essentially a 3-way tie from the get-go.

That is true, but Romney's claim to a "historical" win in both Iowa and NH is now bogus.

So much for Iowa's credibility.

[magritte]

So much for Iowa’s credibility.

---

You got that right. Time for a radical primary change, don’t ya think?

[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.

[Carry_Okie]

With this kind of behavior, the Republican Party “leadership” willfully abandons all moral authority to complain about rampant Democrat ballot fraud. Yet they want so badly for their RINO to win, that they cannot see it. Effectively, they deserve what happened in Florida.

[napscoordinator]

I won’t go that far. However, it is very clear that I need to get on the Newt train because Perry just endorsed him. I am seeing the writing on the wall. lol. Ok so I am thick....it just takes me longer to get with the program.

[Utmost Certainty]

Welcome aboard, FRiend. :)

[newzjunkey]

And Santorum supporters were so sure he'd be declared the winner.

I'm shocked the party is going for "split decision." /s