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Technical Issues In Iowa Force Delay In Caucus Results

(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

...Even after a late-night caucusing - a late night that has rendered no results. We were supposed to know who Iowa Democrats chose to run against President Trump in November. But here we are, still awaiting results for a number of reasons. There were technical issues, all these inconsistencies in results in precincts across the state.

Glenn Hurst is a member of the state Democratic Party central committee in Minden, Iowa. He and his wife both chaired caucuses last night with very different experiences. His went smoothly - for her, not so much. We are joined now by Glenn on Skype.

Hi, Glenn. Thank you so much for being here.

GLENN HURST: Hi. Good morning.

MARTIN: So just describe what happened where you and your wife were working last night.

HURST: So we were both in different caucus locations. I was in our local caucus, Minden, and she had volunteered to cover a precinct that did not have a trained chair in the nearby city of Carson. So my experience was very smooth. And actually, she reported her caucus experience as very smooth...

MARTIN: Right.

HURST: ...The difference was in the reporting.

MARTIN: In the reporting - so what happened with the reporting? Was it the app that gave you trouble? There's a new app that was rolled out. It was supposed to streamline the reporting process. Clearly, that didn't happen.

HURST: Actually, it was the opposite. The app was what I used for my precinct, and using the app was smooth as silk for me.

MARTIN: OK.

HURST: We entered the data, number of people who attended, number of delegates our precinct was supposed to elect and the results of the first and the second alignment, and it spit out the number of delegates. And we hit send it, and off it went to Des Moines, the central location. And then I just filled out paperwork at the end of the event. For my wife, it was much different.

MARTIN: What happened to her?

HURST: She had not known she was going to be chairing this caucus, so she did not get to download the app. So she knew she would be calling in her results. And we started to think there might be something unusual when she had been on the phone for 30, 45 minutes without having been taken off hold to give her results yet.

MARTIN: Wow. So did she ever get the results in?

HURST: She did. At an hour and two minutes into the call, a very pleasant person answered and requested her data that would be used to do the math...

MARTIN: Right.

HURST: ...And sounded like they were entering everything into their computer or jotting it down. And then they had her send a photograph of the final math worksheet to...

MARTIN: OK. Let me ask you - sorry to interrupt, Glenn. Just with seconds remaining - you're a member of the state Democratic committee. What are you hearing from officials this morning, just briefly?

HURST: We're hearing that there is not an app issue, that it was a - or in terms of a hack, but it was a - more of a problem with the data on their side - collecting the data and putting it together.

MARTIN: So we will wait for clarification this afternoon. Supposedly, we will be getting results later today. Glenn Hurst, a caucus chair of Iowa's 3rd District. He spoke to us on Skype.

Glenn, thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it.

HURST: My pleasure. Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.