This is the kind of thing that drove me nuts about caucuses.

[pnwmom]

They literally count heads, in a sea of moving people. And some people may move in or out of the room while they're counting. And this incredibly sloppy process can affect whether a candidate is considered "viable" and gets any delegates at all.

It sounds like Warren may have gotten screwed due to this process in one of the precincts last night. After they recounted the group and decided it was larger, they SHOULD have given people a chance to switch to her -- but they didn't. So she ended up one vote short of the number needed to be viable.

(And I have no idea what they mean about 11 more people who participated who weren't registered. How can ANY participate who aren't registered?)

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2020/02/03/election-2020-iowa-caucus-problems/4618371002/?fbclid=IwAR2RZhVyFz9rUifpYZXLRSk01cOjnOHpzzJQIOoZNaDe_0oz6yonmPsH7ao

A caucusgoer said there was confusion Monday at a West Des Moines location that resulted in Elizabeth Warren losing viability when she might not have. Eric Kochneff, 36, of West Des Moines said he attended the Precinct 114 caucus at Stilwell Junior High and was among those supporting Warren.

Kochneff said the group was told 363 were in attendance and that 56 people would amount to 15 percent, meaning a candidate was viable.

"We had 54, so we got two more,” he said. “It looked like we were viable, and then they counted up all the votes again. This time, instead of 363, they had 379 total votes in the room. They went with the higher number, which made the viability number 57."

He complained that people did not get a chance to regroup after learning 11 more people had participated who weren’t registered.

“It devolved into a scene of chaos instead of an orderly political event,” he said.

The higher number made Warren unviable. Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden and Amy Klobuchar were all viable.