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UNO political scientist: missing Iowa caucus ballots cause for concern

GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum
courtesy Google Images
GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum

 

A UNO political scientist says it’s concerning that caucus results from eight Iowa precincts are missing.

Iowa Republican Party officials released the official caucus results Thursday. They show former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum actually won the caucus, by 34 votes, over former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.  But GOP officials say they won’t declare a winner because of the missing votes.

UNO political scientist Paul Landow says those missing ballots should be cause for concern.“The entire American system of representative democracy is based on the fact that we can rely on what goes on at the polling place. So to hear that they’ve lost ballots, they’re  missing ballots, they’ve miscounted, there’s inaccuracies, and then to have them tell us that they’re permanently irreconcilable is disturbing and upsetting.”

Landow says the Iowa GOP owes it to voters to investigate why ballots are missing and to take actions that ensure it doesn’t happen again.  The Santorum campaign declared victory in Iowa after Thursday morning’s announcement. Iowa GOP officials call it a “virtual tie.”

Reports say the Iowa GOP found inaccurate vote counts in 131 precincts.

On the web: http://iowagop.org