Iowa's largest newspaper calls caucus a 'debacle' and demands audit of razor-thin vote

Hillary Clinton claimed victory over Bernie Sanders by just 0.2 percentage points

The Des Moines Register said something smelled about the event (AP)

Iowa’s largest newspaper has called for an audit of the recent razor thin caucus vote it called a debacle, and claimed that “something smells in the Democratic Party”.

As the battle between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders becomes increasingly hard-fought, the Des Moines Register said there had been confusion and problem at many of the 1,681 polling sites where people voted last Monday night.

The vote resulted in a hair’s breath victory for Ms Clinton, who secured 49.8 per cent, compared to Mr Sanders’ 49.6 per cent. The contest between the two Democratic rivals was so close that the state party did not formally declare the winner until the following day.

Ms Clinton beat Mr Sanders by just 0.2 per cent (AP)

“Once again the world is laughing at Iowa. Late-night comedians and social media mavens are having a field day with jokes about missing caucusgoers and coin flips,” said the newspaper.

“That’s fine. We can take ribbing over our quirky process. But what we can’t stomach is even the whiff of impropriety or error. What happened Monday night at the Democratic caucuses was a debacle, period.”

In some precincts, local delegates were even decided by a series of coin tosses, though the effect may have been negligible on the final tallies of what are known as state delegate equivalents.

“Too many accounts have arisen of inconsistent counts, untrained and overwhelmed volunteers, confused voters, cramped precinct locations, a lack of voter registration forms and other problems,” the newspaper added, in its editorial.

“Too many of us, including members of the Register editorial board who were observing caucuses, saw opportunities for error amid Monday night’s chaos.”

Mr Sanders said he agreed with the newspaper (AP)

During a debate on Thursday night, Mr Sanders said he agreed with the newspaper, but urged people not to blow the issue out of proportion.

“This is not a winner-take-all thing,” he said, during the debate hosted by MSNBC. “This is not the biggest deal in the world.”

With Ms Clinton seemingly in agreement, Mr Sanders said that as the results in Iowa stood, he had secured 20 delegates while Ms Clinton had 22. “We need 2,500 delegates to win the nomination,” he added.

Earlier in the week, Donald Trump, who was beaten into second place by Ted Cruz, claimed the Texas senator had cheated his way to victory.

Mr Trump was referring to accusations from candidate Ben Carson that supporters of Mr Cruz supporters falsely told caucus-goers the retired neurosurgeon was suspending his campaign, as well as a controversial Cruz flyer that accused Iowans of a “voting violation.”

Mr Cruz in turn accused Mr Trump of having a “Trumpertantrum”.