The news out of Iowa this week is that the final results of the Iowa Caucus have been tallied and certified. In the immediate aftermath of the vote, Mitt Romney was declared the winner by all of eight votes. However, it has taken the Iowa GOP the past two weeks to actually count and certify all the votes, and a funny thing happened on the way to that final tally.
First off, it turns out that Rick Santorum, not Mitt Romney, ended up with more votes. This changes the news story of the GOP primary from “Mitt the Inevitable” to David slays a Goliath. Those with attention spans that still function beyond the 15 minute range will remember that Santorum entered the Iowa caucus in last place among opinion surveys. The Iowa GOP now says that Santorum out-polled Romney by 34 votes (full report here: http://iowagop.org/...).
But the second and perhaps stranger part of the story has to do with the actual counting of votes. On Thursday, the Iowa GOP initially declared the result of the vote to be “a split decision”, only later announcing Santorum as the winner. "One thing that is irrefutable is that in the 1,766 certified precincts that the [Iowa] Republican Party was able to certify and report, Rick Santorum was the winner of the certified precinct vote total by 34 votes." spoke Matt Strawn, chairman of the Iowan Republican Party.
Here's the really strange part: the Republican Party in Iowa recognizes 1,774 precincts, not 1,766. That means that votes from 8 entire precincts have not been included in the final “certified” tallies. And because of various procedural and human errors, those votes will never be “certified”, and therefore not included in the final counting. As one GOP staffer put it: “we will never know the final vote”.
The Iowa Republican Party can identify the 8 errant precincts and the party officials responsible for counting votes in those precincts. It appears in some cases that vote tallies from those precincts are available for counting. Despite this, the votes legally cast in eight entire precincts will not be included for the final results.
Says Don Lucas, republican party chairperson for Lee County, home to four of the eight precincts not being counted: "I have the votes in my hands. I have the computer printout with the numbers we sent [to the Iowa GOP] via computer.". Despite having those votes, they will not be counted towards the final results. Lucas goes on to say that in the four precincts in Lee County that are not being counted, Santorum won 59 votes and Romney, 34.
It's good thing that I am not a republican voter in the state of Iowa right now, otherwise I might feel my vote has been abused, and my political party has mis-represented the will of the voters. In a presidential election year.
To which I am sure that the republican party of Iowa will say that the problem is not that votes are legally cast are being ignored and thrown away, but that that liberal media is saying that votes are being ignored.