Recanvassing rules for the Iowa Democratic Party and the Iowa caucuses

While the chair of the Democratic National Committee, Tom Perez, recently called for the Iowa Democratic Party to recanvass the results of the caucus. He can’t do that, nor do existing rules allow it. But there are ways to recanvass.

Rule 2 of the Delegate Selection Rules for the Democratic National Convention provides,

K. While parties are encouraged to use government-run primaries, in states where the State Party chooses to hold a Party-run process to establish presidential preference, the State Party’s Delegate Selection Plan shall prevent attempts at voter suppression, disenfranchisement, and ensure an open and inclusive process. Further, the Rules and Bylaws Committee shall determine whether the State Party’s Delegate Selection Plan meets the requirements specified in this section, including:

…

6. Ensuring final expressions of preference as part of the presidential nominating process are securely preserved, in a method to be specified in the State's Plan, that ensures the availability of a prompt and accurate recount or recanvas;

7. Providing a standard and procedure by which a presidential candidate may request a recount or recanvas that is paid for by the candidate and carried out in a timely manner;

The Iowa Democratic Party established the following recanvas rules for 2020:

8. Any presidential candidate may request a precinct-levelreview of caucus results by submitting a request in writing to the Iowa Democratic Party Chair.

a. Requests for precinct-level review must include the name of the county or counties, the precinct(s), and a credible explanation describing the reason for the request.

b. Requests for precinct-level review must be received by the Chair no later than Friday, February 7, 2020, at 12:00 p.m.

c. The State Party will respond to a request for precinct-level review within 48 hours of receipt. The response will include an anticipated timeline for the review and an estimate of fees to be assessed to the campaign in order to complete the review.

9. Any presidential candidate may request a recanvas of district or state results by submitting a request in writing to the Iowa Democratic Party Chair.

a. Requests for recanvas must include the scope of the desired recanvas, a thorough description of the challenge, and an explanation about how the national delegation could be altered as a result of the problem or its correction.

b. Requests for recanvas must be received by the Chair no later than Friday, February 7, 2020, at 12:00 p.m.

10. The State Central Committee will certify caucus results no later than February 29, 2020.

In short, while the National Committee might examine challenges to the Iowa caucuses at the convention, the formal recanvassing process occurs when a candidate asks for a recanvassing, by Friday, February 7, at 12 pm. I assume, of course, some candidate will take Mr. Perez’s public statement to heart and make the request, but we shall see. (UPDATE: That deadline was extended.)

More transparency in Iowa caucuses leads to more complexity

The 2016 Democratic caucuses in Iowa were close, hotly contested, and left supporters of candidate Bernie Sanders frustrated. The caucuses operated as usual—voters show up at a variety of sites around the state, herd into corners of rooms to express their first preference of candidates, realign if their candidates are “non-viable,” and then that final alignment is translated into “state delegate equivalents,” which turn into the way of measuring “victory” from the caucuses. Only those delegate equivalent totals were reported. Questions arose about what happened in those earlier stages of the process.

Reform efforts looked at increasing transparency. “First alignment,” “final alignment,” and “state delegate equivalents” would all be reported.

Of course, increased disclosure means increased complexity in reporting results (related, in part, to the “app” fiasco). And increased disclosure also means increased opportunities to look back at consistency.

It turns out that there have been extensive inconsistencies in how some of the results have been reported.

Truth be told, such inconsistencies probably happen each year. Herd hundreds of people into a gymnasium, line them up in corners, and ask volunteers to count them? Probably some errors are going to happen.

For the most part, these errors are assuredly (1) innocent (e.g., due to incompetence, not malice); (2) randomly distributed (i.e., not likely to systematically favor one candidate over another); and (3) less important if the “state delegate equivalents” are the right result even if other inaccuracies exist.

For instance, suppose a candidate is listed as having 40 supporters (20% of those present) in the “first alignment” but only 39 supporters (19.5% of those present) in the “final alignment,” when present (new) rules forbid “realigning” if your candidate is “viable” (i.e., has at least 15% support) in the first alignment? If the error is in the tabulation of the “first alignment,” it doesn’t actually matter when it comes to the final alignment that translates into the state delegate equivalents.

In previous years, we’d never find that error. But that error is also immaterial to the result. Granted, it exposes this year that the math was not precise, or that there were some errors at some stages of the process, or that volunteer caucus workers were not as careful as they ought to have been—and one can draw preferred inferences from those new details.

All this is to say, the fuzziness of the caucus results worked in previous years because these errors were never disclosed publicly, likely were randomly distributed, and at least sometimes never altered the ultimate results. But more transparency leads to more complexity. And more complexity leads to more highlights of errors or inconsistencies. Ironically, perhaps, the increased transparency has undermined confidence in the results.

Time will tell whether this means changes for the Iowa caucuses. But these are simply my initial thoughts that transparency may yield complexity, which creates its own challenges.