Coin tosses and counting errors: Iowa Democratic caucus magnet for joke

The official campaign to pick the Democratic presidential candidate has only just begun, but it is already mired in controversy over unlikely and dubious outcomes, becoming fodder for jokes on TV and twitter.

The extremely close Iowa race saw Hillary Clinton winning with 49.8 percent of votes against Bernie Sanders’ 49.6 percent. Iowa awards delegates to candidates on a precinct-by-precinct basis. With some precincts failing to report, others deciding the winner with a coin toss, and others just not counting some voters – they were bound to become targets of derision.

Many on social media found the little-known rule absurd.

Others commented that the sloppy way of determining a winner was not limited to the coin toss method. At least one precinct had an inaccurate method of counting that didn’t seem to add up.

Comedy shows were quick to question the process with coins and missing voters, as well as some precincts not having phones to report the results.

Some tweeters couldn’t believe where the caucus counters were storing votes.

In the long run, voting could not keep up with the Kardashians.  While an estimated 350,000 people went to the polls in Iowa, more than 493,000 people voted in a Twitter poll Kim Kardashian ran on the same day, which asked people to vote on potential names for her husband Kanye West’s next album.