Recanvass of Iowa caucus results sought by Bernie Sanders

A “partial recanvass” of the Iowa causus results has been requested by Bernie Sanders.

The state was the first contest as the Democratic party look to select a candidate to take on the Republicans in the 2020 US presidential election.

But technical issues marred the contest as an app used by party volunteers to report results and jammed phone lines set up for the same purpose resulted in the Iowa Democratic Party failing to release any results to the public until nearly a day after the event.

The state party released updated results on Sunday showing Pete Buttigieg leading Mr Sanders by two state delegate equivalents out of 2,152 counted.

Mr Sanders’s campaign has asked for a partial recanvass ahead of a Monday deadline.

A recanvass is not a recount, but a check of the vote count to ensure the results were added correctly.

Behind the scenes, party volunteers reported inconsistencies in the complicated calculations used by caucus volunteers to work out the outcome of each individual caucus.

To confirm the validity of the data they received, Iowa Democratic Party officials spent much of the week collecting paper records of the results and checking them against the numbers reported by volunteers.

But issues continued to plague the party’s reporting, and the Iowa Democratic Party on Saturday said it was reviewing reported inconsistencies in 95 precincts.

The state party also asked campaigns to submit any evidence of inconsistencies in the final results, and pledged to issue any corrections by Monday.