Waukee Republicans React to Final Caucus Tallies

First it was Mitt Romney. Today, it's Rick Santorum.

The actually won the Jan. 3 Iowa Caucuses is still raging thanks to eight Iowa precincts that — for reasons unknown — never turned in the voting results on Caucus night.

Still, without those votes, the count as verified by the Republican Party of Iowa today puts Santorum at the top of the heap with just 34 votes over Romney.

Does the mix-up cast doubt on Iowa being able to choose the next president of the United States? Many area Republicans say, "no."

"I don't think it's that big a deal," said Jon McAvoy. "A few people in a few Caucuses didn't follow instructions and some people made human errors in data entry. By far, most of the process worked well."

Isaiah McGee volunteered to help with the Caucus at Waukee 2 at South Middle School. He said there's no chance the numbers were incorrect from his precinct.

"In my precinct, three of us tallied the votes and double-checked each others' totals," McGee said. "Observers from each of the campaigns watched us count and none objected to our final numbers."

McGee said the best practices were followed when reporting the final tallies.

"The county set up a hotline to report the numbers where the operator and caller repeated the totals," he continued. "That operator then called the state with the numbers for each precinct in the county. The official forms compared to what people called in and computer error appear to be the biggest problem here."

McAvoy said he personally had a hand in the delivery of the results, so there should be no doubt about how things were done at his precinct either.

"I can guarantee there were no irregularities at my precinct. I was caucus chairman," he said. "We had two people double count the ballots, carefully complete the appropriate form, and had our selected 'reporter' phone in the results. The official form was signed by me as chairman and the caucus secretary for each precinct (we had two combined) also sign it. The forms were hand-delivered to our Central Committee Chairman that evening by me."

Whether operator error or communication issue, Sarah Bowman of Waukee said it shouldn't cast doubt on Iowans' place in the process.

"I hope all of the 'mistakes' don't cause us to lose our first-in-the-nation status," she said. "We've got a lot of work ahead of us to keep us at first-in-the-nation status ... and a bit of trust rebuilding within the party. We Iowans are trusting folks and we forgive, but don't forget."

McGee said no matter the vote counts, the outcome is the same.

"On Jan. 4, Romney called it a win and Rick Santorum called it a 'virtual tie,'" he said. "On Jan. 18, Santorum called it a win and Romney calls it a 'virtual tie.' The Iowa narrative is still the same. Rick Santorum proves he's a legitimate contender and Romney proves he can compete without pandering."