Bernie Sanders’ Campaign Requests Recount Of Iowa Caucuses After Release Of Final Vote

After Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders requested a partial recanvass of the Iowa caucus results last week — along with former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg — the 78-year-old politician’s campaign said Tuesday night that he is requesting a recount of the Iowa Democratic Party’s recanvass results, Axios reports.

According to the recount, Sanders has 563.127 state delegate equivalents and Buttigieg has 563.207, putting Buttigieg ahead by 0.08, which Politico reports is less than one-hundredth of one percent.

“We now believe a recount will give Sen. Sanders enough State Delegate Equivalents to put him over the top by that metric as well,” Sanders senior adviser Jeff Weaver said in a statement. “We want to thank the people of Iowa, our supporters, our volunteers and everyone who made this possible.”

As of now, Buttigieg has 14 delegates, and Sanders has 12, but these numbers could change following a recount. Elsewhere, Sanders continues to lead in the first-choice alignment, as well as the final alignment of the popular vote.

“Yet again these results confirm that Pete won the Iowa caucuses and remains the delegate leader in the Democratic primary,” the Buttigieg campaign said, although Politico reports it did not comment on whether it would request a recount.

Speaking to Politico, Weaver appeared optimistic that a recount would help Sanders.

“Look, it would have obviously been much better for the people of Iowa and people of this country to learn the results the night of the Iowa caucuses,” he said, adding that he believes the audits they have pursued will show Sanders as the winner.

The rollout of the results hit so many roadblocks that The Associated Press said it was “unable to declare a winner based on the available information,” pointing to reports of accuracy problems and the possibility of a recount.

Per The New York Post, a recount would involve reviewing the preference cards that Iowa caucusgoers filled out on the night in question and a subsequent recalculation of the data in each precinct.

As The Inquisitr previously reported, the Iowa Democratic Party came under fire for alleged discrepancies in the results during the delayed rollout of precinct data. Notably, Black Hawk County Supervisor Chris Schwartz took to social media to reveal the count for the region, which differed from those released by the Iowa Democrats.

The discrepancy was noted by civil rights activist Shaun King, who pointed to the apparent increase in votes for Tom Steyer and Deval Patrick in the Black Hawk County supervisor’s count.