An Iowa Democratic Party sign fell to the floor as the party chairman tried to account for a disastrous caucus plagued by tech failures and bad math, creating what many netizens dubbed a perfect allegory for the botched primary.
As state party chair Troy Price fielded questions on Monday about “rounding errors” found in Iowa’s Democratic primary results – which placed 2020 hopeful Pete Buttigieg ahead of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders by a margin of 0.1 percent – a party banner gave way mid-sentence, interrupting the chair as it awkwardly crashed on the ground.
While Price was hardly phased by the mishap, Twitter found it harder to ignore, interpreting the event as a sign from the heavens, though the precise message was up for debate.
It was a “gift” from physics, one user said, calling the coincidence “too perfect.”
“A slapstick prop gag may not be the most sophisticated kind of comedy but when perfectly executed, it's hard to top,”joked another commenter.
Now seemingly a permanent fixture in American politics, some also suggested hackers in Moscow, apparently capable of any feat, were behind the embarrassing moment, which punctuated an even more embarrassing primary.
Even before “mathematical rounding errors” were discovered in the final caucus tally, a smartphone application designed for reporting the results ran into major technical problems, delaying the count by days and creating chaos in the reporting process. In light of the glitch and other problems, DNC chair Tom Perez called for a review of numbers from each caucus site “to assure public confidence in the results.” Sanders – who along with Buttigieg also requested a recanvass – slammed the whole event as a “disgrace” and an “embarrassment.”
The Iowa Democratic Party on Monday acknowledged the inconsistencies in the final vote and said a recanvass would address the problems, even while admitting that erroneous caucus worksheets used to tally the results would not be altered.
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