Strawn had announced hours after the Jan. 3 caucuses concluded that Romney had won by eight votes. Most news organizations relied on that party announcement, since the results were not officially collected by the state, while waiting final party certification of the vote.
“This is almost an entirely volunteer, grass-roots driven process,’’ Strawn said. He congratulated Santorum and Romney “on a hard-fought effort during the closest contest in caucus history.’’
Presidential nominating events for both Republicans and Democrats are a mix of party-run caucuses and primaries - like those held in Iowa and South Carolina - and officially sanctioned state primaries - like those in New Hampshire and Florida.
The main difference is that with state-run events, you always get a winner, even if it takes multiple recounts and court battles. Local election officials are required by law to meet certification deadlines, and if a race is really close, the law spells out the recount rules that ultimately determine how the winner is decided.
Twenty states have mandatory recount laws for state elections, if the final difference between the top two candidates falls within a certain margin.
For the Iowa caucuses, however, state party officials had a certification form and a deadline, but no recount procedure.
Rick Grote, a member of the Franklin County GOP central committee, was site chairman for seven precincts that met at a high school in Hampton, including one of the missing eight. He said the chairman of that precinct apparently failed to send the form certifying the vote count to the state party.
Lee County GOP chairman Don Lucas, who had four of the noncertified precincts in his county, said he believes supporters of a candidate - he is not sure which - took the certification form to report to the candidate how the candidate did and never brought it back.
Common Cause president Bob Edgar said if Iowa wants to retain its status as the nation’s first presidential nominating event, both parties need to clean up their vote-counting acts.
