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IOWA’S POLITICAL PRIDE AT STAKE 2020 revealed flaws in Iowa’s delegate allocation process. Many are left wondering how long the state will keep its famed caucuses. WORDS BY HAYDEN WITTROCK | ILLUSTRATION BY LILA JOHNSON
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or nearly 50 years, Iowa has prided itself in being the first stop in the nation for presidential contenders on the path toward the White House. Rather than a typical primary, similar to ballot-box voting, Iowa holds caucuses, which include more direct and interactive participation. At a caucus, voters arrive at their precinct and publicly sort themselves into groups aligning with their preferred candidate. Participants in the caucus can lobby for their candidate and shift to different candidates in order for that candidate to become viable or have a percentage of participants that meets a certain threshold. This threshold varies on the size of the precinct, but is no less than 15% of all attendees. A national call for a reform in the primary process following the 1968 election resulted in the formation of the Iowa caucuses. Due to the complexity of the caucus process, Iowa began going first in 1972, ahead of the previously-first state New Hampshire. The Iowa caucuses began to hold significance to candidates as they gave campaigns a chance to get a head start in their path toward the nomination. Before 2020, the five past Democratic Party nominees were predicted by the Iowa caucuses.
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While the adoption of the caucuses in Iowa stemmed from an apparent need for more direct democratic representation, the events of the 2020 Iowa caucuses began to draw more attention to the caucuses’ flaws. One criticism of the caucuses is that the methods used for systematic processes such as counting and reporting results have become outdated. In 2020, leaders of the caucus were aiming to modernize some of these methods used for reporting results by implementing more accessibility and technology through a developed app. The “IowaReporterApp” was specifically developed for the purpose of Iowa caucuses. With the app, precinct captains across the state had the option to digitally report their locations’ results, rather than call in their results over the phone. In the time leading up to the 2020 caucuses, however, problems were already arising with the app as almost no prior training was given to precinct leaders. Additionally, glitches in the app prevented many of those who were working on caucus night from even downloading it or logging in.
