Iowa officially gives Buttigieg the largest delegate count, followed closely by Sanders

Iowans register at their caucus site in Des Moines on Feb. 3, 2020.
Iowans register at their caucus site in Des Moines on Feb. 3, 2020. Copyright Brian Snyder Reuters
By Adam Edelman and Maura Barrett with NBC News Politics
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The decision comes despite the fact that the results are rife with potential errors and inconsistencies. NBC News has not called a winner in the race.

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The Iowa Democratic Party on Sunday allocated delegates based on the results of last week's Iowa caucuses, giving former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg the largest delegate count, followed closely by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

The party said it would, based on the results of the race it had collected, award 14 delegates to Buttigieg and 12 delegates to Sanders.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass, will receive 8 delegates, while former Vice President Joe Biden will receive 6 and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., will receive 1, the party said.

NBC News is not calling a winner in the first-in-the-nation contest, and the NBC News Decision Desk is not making any independent delegate allocations at this time.

Those delegate allocations are based on the revised results from the caucus that the party collected.

Iowa Democratic caucus results are not actual votes cast. The percentages received by candidates, based on returns of the estimated number of state convention delegates won by each candidate through the caucus process, are known as state delegate equivalents, or SDEs.

Iowa sends 41 pledged delegates to the Democratic National Convention. The allocation of those delegates is based proportionally on the SDE results.

The reporting totals from Iowa have been put out, in fits and spurts, by the Iowa Democratic Party over the past three days after chaos over the caucuseson Monday night. Results from the contest were delayed by what organizers said was a problem with a smartphone app. The Iowa Democratic Party said problems with reporting the caucus results were due partly to "coding issues" with the app, which was being used for the first time.

The results are rife with potential errors and inconsistencies that could affect the outcome of the election, according to a review by the NBC News Decision Desk.

Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez has called on state party officials to recanvass Monday's caucus vote after days of uncertainty and growing concerns about "inconsistencies" found in the data.

A recanvass is essentially a double-checking of the vote. Iowa officials would have to hand-audit the caucus worksheets and reporting forms to ensure that they were correctly calculated and reported.

Earlier Friday, the IDP announced it had extended the deadline for campaigns to request a recanvass or recount to Monday at 1:00 p.m. ET. It had previously been Friday at 1:00 p.m. ET.

The IDP also announced a Saturday 1:00 p.m. ET deadline for campaigns to submit "documentary evidence of inconsistencies between the data reported and the records of result for correction."

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