Democratic party chief calls for review of results following Iowa chaos

Bernie Sanders declares victory with popular vote while state chair says he's committed to 'collecting and reviewing incoming results' amid DNC pushback

DNC chair Tom Perez is calling for a recanvassing of Iowa caucus worksheets. (Reuters)

Following repeat errors and continued delays in the release of the vote counts from 2020's Iowa caucus, a leading Democratic Party official is calling for a "recanvass" of the state.

Tom Perez, chair of the Democratic National Committee, announced that "enough is enough" despite 3 per cent of the total count still missing from the final results from the nation's first round of voting in the Democratic presidential primary to determine who earns the party's nomination to face Donald Trump in November.

He said on Twitter: "In light of the problems that have emerged in the implementation of the delegate selection plan and in order to assure public confidence in the results, I am calling on the Iowa Democratic Party to immediately begin a recanvass."

A recanvass typically involves a precinct-by-precinct recount of paper votes. Party officials in Iowa are currently reviewing votes and entering them manually after an app's failure prevented precincts from uploading their results in the first place.

Mr Perez says a recanvass in Iowa would review the worksheets from each caucus site "to ensure accuracy". The results from each precinct would be checked against the figures recorded by the state party.

The call from Mr Perez follows a sharp uptick in caucus results supporting Bernie Sanders, edging closer to Democratic rival Pete Buttiegieg with 97 per cent of the votes in. The Vermont senator and former South Bend, Indiana mayor are nearly tied in state delegate equivalent counts, though Mr Sanders received more than 6,000 votes more than his opponent in the 12-candidate spread, earning the popular vote.

According to CNN, the DNC is concerned how Iowa assigned state delegate equivalents from satellite caucus results — which were recently entered, adding to Mr Sanders' surge.

In a statement, Iowa Democratic Party Chair Troy Price pushed back at the DNC's demand and said the party owes it to the "thousands of Iowa Democratic volunteers and caucusgoers to remain focused on collecting and reviewing incoming results".

He cited party rules that only a campaign can request an audit.

Mr Price said: "This caucus opened new opportunities for accessibility that were never able before — including over 1,500 caucusgoers attending satellite caucuses in senior living centres, Mosques, and overseas, and first-of-their-kind Spanish language and hand sign sites. This process will not be complete until we honour them."

A New York Times review of 100 precincts found results that are inconsistent with the official counts or missing data entirely, noting that those discrepancies could make a significant difference in the final results when margins remain razor-thin.

Mr Buttiegieg appeared to declare himself the victor after voting closed, despite no reported results, saying: "Iowa, you have shocked the nation, because by all indications, we are going on to New Hampshire victorious."

During a press conference in New Hampshire on Thursday, Mr Sanders said his campaign earned a "very strong victory" by turning out more voters for his campaign.

"From where I come, if you got 6,000 more votes, that's generally regarded to be the winner", he said.

The senator leads the first and second alignment votes among caucusgoers, and is currently just three — or .1 per cent — state delegate equivalent votes behind Mr Buttiegieg.

Mr Sanders attributed his potential victory to "the unprecedented grassroots effort of our campaign", which included 1,700 volunteers and 10,000 door-knocking shifts to rally support for the candidate.

"Thousands of volunteers knocked on hundreds of thousands of doors in the cold and snow", he said on Twitter. "I want to thank each and every volunteer who participated in that effort."