Iowa caucus in chaos due to problems with voting app

DES MOINES, Iowa (NBC) – It’s caucus chaos Tuesday with no results from Iowa after massive problems with the app used to record and relay the votes.

Helplines are jammed. Officials are saying they’re working to make it right. Voters are left angry and confused. However, the candidates were giving victory-like speeches anyway.

Tuesday morning the candidates are already off to New Hampshire with the Iowa caucuses in chaos with an unprecedented breakdown in reporting the returns.

After waiting all night, and early into the morning, no winner has been declared.

Candidate Joe Biden said, “The Iowa Democratic Party’s working to get these results, to get ’em straight. And I want to make sure they’re very careful in those deliberations!”

Overnight, the Iowa Democratic Party said it found “inconsistencies in the reporting of three sets of results” from the caucuses, saying the delay was the result of a “reporting issue” and not due to “an intrusion” involving the party’s new results app.

In other words: the app wasn’t hacked. Caucus officials said it was confusing and difficult to download.

The lack of results is giving each candidate a chance to spin it in their favor.

The Iowa Democratic Party first announced the delay hours after the caucuses began, saying, “The integrity of the results is paramount” and pointing to the need for “quality checks.”

The delay is raising new questions about the future of the Iowa caucuses, a voting process that already confuses many across the country. Unlike primaries, where voters cast a secret ballot for their candidate, caucus-goers publicly declare their preferred pick. But if a candidate gets less than 15% of the people present they’re considered “unviable.” Then those caucus-goers get to pick one of the candidates who is viable and move to that group.

Before a new count is taken, it’s a process that could go on for some time.

David Plouffe, who managed Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, says 2020 could be the end of the line for Iowa. “We may be witnessing the last Iowa caucuses,” he said. “I mean, this was already under threat and I think this is just going to add to that.”