A "surgical recanvass" of the Iowa caucuses is needed because accuracy counts, Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez said Friday morning after 100% of the results from Monday were reported to be complete.
"At the end of the day, this is about delegates to the national convention, and I have confidence in the soundness of these results," Perez told CNN's New Day." "What happened was unacceptable," said Perez. "The Iowa party acknowledged that they fell short. The chair apologized. At the same time, the delegate math is such that these issues, in all likelihood, are not going to affect the range of national delegates."
Meanwhile, it will be a close finish between former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., over who will have the most delegates, said Perez, adding that it will either be a tie or a difference of one delegate.
"I'll leave it to the voters to call winners," said Perez. "This is about delegates to the national convention. We're still figuring out what the state delegate equivalents translate to."
He noted that after the 2016 election, the DNC "incentivized states" to move from caucuses to primaries, and seven states did. However, there are still seven states, including Iowa, that still have the caucus system, so the conversation will continue about how to make sure they work.
Perez also deflected blame on the issues away from himself, telling CNN that the Iowa Democratic Party runs the caucuses, and rejected complaints from Sanders about former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg being allowed on the debate stage in Nevada.
"We were very clear four or five months ago that once people started voting we would have a different set of rules," said Perez. "If you get one delegate out of New Hampshire or Iowa, you're on the debate stage, or if you get to 10%. "
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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